


This City's Built on Salted Earth

by vellaphoria



Series: a bird in the hand [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends, Gaslighting, Gen, Hypocrisy, Unreliable Narrator, Very Minor, canon divergence - post Battle for the Cowl, minor Ra'sTim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 10:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16366109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vellaphoria/pseuds/vellaphoria
Summary: Gotham has always had more than enough bad blood to go around. Between the gangs, the vigilantes, and the freaks haunting the city’s streets, it’s just a fact of life. It isn’t the sort of thing that you fix.But what do you do when someone can’t leave well enough alone? When the kid who took the only good thing that ever happened to Jason - someone who he has two lifetimes worth of bad blood with - keeps showing up and saving his damn life?Jason gets the feeling that if he knew the answer to that question, he’d be a hell of a lot saner.A prequel toDeadfall, but can be read as a standalone.





	This City's Built on Salted Earth

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for 2018's DCU Big Bang event, approximately a day later than anticipated.
> 
> This year, I've had the pleasure to work with multiple fan artists who are much more on top of their game than I am. They've done some really amazing work, so go check them out! 
> 
> [omgiamwish](https://omgiamwish.tumblr.com/post/179270056394/my-art-for-the-dcu-big-bang-dcubang-i-partnered)  
>    
> [amberdreams](https://amberdreams.livejournal.com/592881.html)
> 
> gwenfrankenstien (please see 'works inspired by this one' section)
> 
>  
> 
> And, as always, innumerable thanks to my lovely beta, ArtificialLifeCreator, without whom this would never have seen the light of day. You are eternally fantastic, and I have no idea how I would get anything done without you.
> 
> Note: for more information on potential TWs, please see the end note

Of course, he just _had_ to go with the cliché.

Creepy, abandoned warehouse? Check. Guards wearing two-toned suits, packing more guns than sense? Check. Tracking down a long chain with links thicker than Hood’s dick - and that amount of metal ain’t _cheap_ – and using it to _hang him from the goddamn ceiling?_

Double _fucking_ check.

And, to put the cherry on top of the hostage sunday, the bastards wised up from the last time they caught him. If he’s lucky, his lockpicks are somewhere on the other side of the warehouse. If he isn’t, they’re at the bottom of the harbor. Either way, the goon who thought to take them is getting a nice elbow in the teeth and a bullet in the gut for their trouble.

That is, if he gets out of here in once piece.

Hood flexes beneath the chains, checking their give. There isn’t much. Just enough for him to rattle the end trailing down to the warehouse’s first level. Maybe he can even smack one of the patrolling guards, take the edge off his _particularly_ bad mood...

It swings through the semi-darkness, catching on the old, flickering lights suspended from the nearby catwalks. Hood twists, shifting his momentum to send the chain closer to a single, stationary guard. Dent’s keeping it classy tonight, apparently, and the guy’s wearing this half-black, half-white monstrosity that, if Hood’s being honest, could be a whole hell of a lot uglier considering what his boss _normally_ wears.

One pass, and he’s closer to smacking the guy. Two, and he’s almost there. Three and -

“Settle down,” a voice mutters.

Hood whips his head up so quickly that his neck actively protests.

Staring back at him is a singular guard, perched on the catwalk that Hood’s position gives him little choice but to stare at. He moves a hand off his gun to scrub at the dark smudges beneath his eyes.

“What’s it to you?” Hood sneers, putting extra effort into the next swing. “And why should I care? I ain’t got no idea how long you’ve been signed on with Harv, but if it’s anything more‘n a month, you _have_ to know that I’ll get out ‘ventually. An’ then .…”

Another swing. This time, the chain hits home, smacking the stationary guard in the middle of his stupid, two-toned back. The man startles, glaring up. The chain rebounds, making Hood rattle like a damn poltergeist.

“Look,” drawls the guard on the catwalk, “ya made your point. You’re trouble. You’re a _bad_ prisoner to keep. You’re going to hurt us in ways we couldn’t even _imagine_ ‘till we beg for death. Etcetera, etcetera, it’s _nothin’_ we ain’t heard before. So why don’t you do everyone here a favor an’ just _shut up_ until the bossman gets here.”

They’ve left him his helmet. Dent’s orders, probably; the bastard’s always liked a bit of dramatic tension in his hostage situations.

“An’ what’s in it for me?” Hood says, smirking. The guard can’t see it, but it’s all the same to Hood.

The guard saunters closer to the catwalk’s railing. Leans on it with the the most dickish posture Hood’s seen in both lifetimes. “Both your kneecaps,” he says, hefting his gun. “Boss said not to kill you; didn’t say nothing ‘bout keeping you whole.” He grins lopsidedly. His tone could curdle milk.

Well, fuck him. Hood gives as good as he gets. “Ooooh, _scary_ ,” he says, the sarcasm wavering through his helmet’s synths. “Lookit you - big man with a gun gettin’ all _threatening_ with a guy all tied up. Ya’ wanna prove you’re a _real_ player in Gotham’s underworld? Unlock these chains. You and me, man to man, winner walks free.”

The guard raises an eyebrow. “Does this look like the _thunderdome_ to you, asshole?”

Hood scoffs. “It’s Gotham. Same thing.”

He shifts again. The chain rattles. He wonders if he could get enough momentum on this thing to swing it up, maybe whip the long end of it hard enough to wrap it around the guard’s neck and pull _down_.

The guard only glares. “Cute. Boss’s gonna be here soon anyway - an’ after last time, when he sees who we caught tonight there won’t be enough of you left to identify in the morning.”

“Been there before,” Hood spits, “I got bet–”

Somewhere behind him, the warehouse door creaks open, cutting him off. Hood hears voices, then shouting. In the distance, there’s a sound like a body hitting the warehouse floor.

The guard leers, smirking.  

“Time’s up.”

Hood sneers back, not that the guard can tell.

Below, metal stairs ring out with the heavy thudding of reinforced boots.

The guard scuffs the toe of his boot against the catwalk’s iron floor, masking a vindictive laugh. “Good luck.”

He turns sharply, walking off into the unlit parts of the suspended first floor, steps echoing off into the darkness.

They’re replaced by something worse.

“Well, well, well .…” and Hood didn’t spend a couple of months locked up down the hall from _that_ voice to not know it when he hears it.

The light hanging above Hood flickers ominously as Dent steps to the center of the catwalk. Another minion follows him, wheeling in an old, rusty cart that rattles as it moves.

Just _great_. Tonight’s special is torture. Buffet style.

Hood huffs, letting his annoyance filter through the helmet’s synths.

Look. It’s been a while, but once upon a time the Red Hood made an _art_ of the hostage situation. The staging. The pacing _._ The threats should be _music_. The anticipation of violence, the hostage’s heartbeat running the gauntlet from adagio to prestissimo, crescendoing in terror before crashing back to earth, defeated.

Hood doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore, at least not where Gotham’s other vigilantes can see it. But hell if it’s been so long that he doesn’t remember _how_ it’s done. And this? This ain’t that.

_This_ is some of the most hackneyed crap he’s seen from Dent in a while, and for a guy who hasn’t worn a single colored suit since he had his face half melted off, that’s saying something.

Maybe without the Big Bad Bat – the real one, that is – around, he’s lost inspiration.

Assuming, of course, that Dent had any in the first place.

Hood’s barely even listening by the time Dent gets to, “a _dual_ identity. _Two_ men, intertwined. The mask, and the face beneath the mask.” He stops mid pace, trying and failing to build dramatic tension.

The warehouse’s spotlights glare down. It’s the ‘DA with mayoral aspirations’ side of Dent that’s facing him. The harsh light turns his features stark but chiseled. For effect, Hood assumes. It’s always for fucking effect with these assholes.

“I have come to hate masks,” Dent says. Quietly. Faux-thoughtfully. As if he’s coming up with this on the spot and doesn’t rehearse every night _just in case_ he manages to catch one of Gotham’s good guys.

Or Hood, apparently. Dent must be feeling low on victims – he doesn’t normally give this treatment to other murderous assholes. Unless he catches them trying to boost one of his ammo caches ... not that Hood would know anything about that.

“Do you know why?” The foot closer to Hood pivots. Dent’s getting ready for the turn, for the big reveal. As if Hood hasn’t seen it all before. Assuming this is _new_ and _interesting?_ Honestly. These freaks and their myriad psychoses.

Hood sighs. “‘Cause you ‘have become face _and_ mask, irrevocably, and thus your true nature was revealed to all. Man, monster, they are the same.’ _Jesus Christ,_ Harvey. We were in the same fucking ‘therapy’ circle in Arkham. You think I haven’t heard all this shit _way_ too many times before?”

“ _Quiet!_ ” Dent hisses, flinching. His hand drifts to the side of his suit Hood can’t see. The other half’s probably black, going off what his goons are in tonight. Doesn’t really matter, though. Hood will see it soon enough.

He finds what he’s looking for, and pulls it out, clenched tight in his fist.

“Do you believe in luck, Red Hood?” Dent’s hand uncurls in a flash of silver.

Once, after he’d finally shaken enough of the green out of his skull, he managed to shoot Dent’s coin out of the air, mid flip. At the height of its arc, his bullet sent it _flying_ into the wreckage of a nearby building. Dent spent so long trying to dig it out and see which side it landed on that the GCPD bagged and tagged him before he’d even killed anybody.

But Hood’s guns are on the other side of the warehouse, in a chest guarded by bit-rate mooks that he could take out in his _sleep_ if they hadn’t gotten the drop on him and managed to chain him up.

“How ‘bout circumstance an’ causality?” Hood sneers.

Dent squints, twitches. He _hates_ it when people go off script.

Then he shifts just a little more and – okay. _Here it comes._

Hood braces himself. Steels his stomach. Clenches down on the inevitable wave of nausea.

“ _DO YOU BELIEVE IN LUCK, JASON TODD?_ ” Dent _roars_ , turning fully, hands clenched tight on the catwalk’s railing, spittle flying. The coin pokes out from between two unburnt fingers, but. Jesus _fuck_ , the rest of that guy.

His henchmen look comparatively _classy_ . Why couldn’t one of them have told him that sewing some green-blue-purple _plaid_ monstrosity onto a regular white suit half was a good fashion choice?

And it gets worse.

Dent’s face has deteriorated since the last time Jason saw him. The muscle’s peeling away, making it look like his reddened eyeball is bulging out of his skull. The burned-away flesh over his mouth has split further, locking perfect Ivy League teeth into a pastiche of one of those stupid drama masks depicting two emotions, split right down the middle. Or, one emotion in this case. Enraged DA meets royally pissed-off discount zombie.

Distracted by the ugly, Hood’s eyes are pulled up and over to the very edge of the horror show. Part of the guy’s skull is showing.

_Shit_. Helmet or no helmet, Hood might just throw up after all.

“Ack, _gross._ Put it away Harv!”

The sound Dent makes is inhuman. Also, the sort of thing Hood used to hear at least five times a night in Arkham, and not always from _this_ particular piece of work. It kinda lost its charm after the first few months in the nuthouse.    

“Yeah, yeah,” Hood taunts. “What’cha gonna do ‘bout it? Shoot me? Go ahead! Do me a favor an’ put me outta the misery of lookin’ at _your_ ugly mug.”

The sound morphs into something like a scream, and Dent whips out his gun. It’s a _double_ barrel pistol, because _of course_ it is. The movement strains his suit, and one of its two buttons flies off with enough force to cross the few feet between them and _pling_ off Hood’s helmet. Dent growls and tears the other off, thread trailing behind it.

Hood isn’t really qualified to judge other people’s crazy, but. _Seriously?_

And then there’s a gun leveled at Hood’s head, so close that it’s more likely than not that Dent’s about to make him the _Dead_ Hood. Right before dragging his body out onto the warehouse’s pier and throwing it into the pollution soup that is Gotham’s Harbor.

Hood glares at him, but Dent’s already fumbling for the coin.

_Fuuuuuuck._ Yeah, at this point it’a about fifty-fifty that the night is about to get much worse.

But, and Hood doesn’t know _how_ he keeps forgetting this little nugget of wisdom, just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, Gotham always finds a way to drag you deeper.

Dent never even starts the flip.

Somewhere behind Hood, there’s a gasp, a crack, and the sound of a body hitting the floor _hard_ . Two more follow and, while Dent is busy leaning too far over the catwalk to make out whoever’s beating up his troops, something red and gold and _sharp_ goes flying at one of the cables anchoring his walkway to the ceiling. It isn’t much – the thing _does_ have struts supporting it – but whoever threw that thing had a good idea of where the warehouse’s structural weakness might be.

The entire catwalk _lurches_ , unbalancing Dent enough that he falls face first and eats latticed metal.

A blur of black-red-gold follows him, jamming a booted foot into his solar plexus.

“Stay down,” the blur says and it looks so _fucking_ familiar but it still takes Hood a solid minute to realize that the freak is wearing _his costume_ . Red Robin. Which he only later learned was also the name of a burger chain, so sue him, but that mantle is _his_.

And the one who stole it?

Even if the kid spits his words out like they’re all bile and bitter sarcasm, Hood would know that voice _anywhere._

“Hey, Hood,” the goddamn, motherfucking _Replacement_ says. “How’s it hanging?”

And, for a moment, all he sees is _green_.

Pulsing. Swirling through his veins like ink, heart pumping it out into the rest of his body, and it’s too much he can’t  - he _can’t_ -

_Breathe,_ something in his mind whispers.

It’s a sickening lurch when he realizes it sounds just like Talia.

_Just breathe_.

Jason shakes his head, but the Pit’s got its claws in him already.

_Inhale. Then exhale. One at a time, Beloved._

He won’t let this take him. He _won’t_.

_You are in control._

Jason opens his eyes. Chases the flecks of green to the edges of his vision, until they diffuse into the rest of his field of view.

_You are strong_.

In. Out.

His breathing evens. His heartbeat slows. The Replacement stares back at him like he’s just seen the most goddamn unnerving thing of his fucked up childhood, but _too fucking bad_.  

Control is Jason’s. Being able to _stop_ this is Jason’s. He’s fought hard for this – fought hard and _won_. His demons can’t touch him.

He gives himself a slow count to ten before he puts the proverbial mask back on.

“What the fuck do _you_ want?” Hood snarls, bearing his teeth.

“Not you.” The Replacement scowls. “I was following a lead.”

“Thought you got run the fuck outta Gotham, runt?” The green may be gone, but Hood’s grin is still near- _manic_ . “Heard you were too _scared_ that Goldie was halfway ta’ fittin’ you for your own cell in Arkham. Some nice little number with padding and fucking electrified bars.”

“You heard wrong,” the Replacement snaps. He grinds his heel farther in to Dent’s lower back, provoking a guttural snarl. Physically, he has all the leverage. But _verbally…_

“Nah, I don’t think I did. See, news travels _fast_ ‘round this neck ‘a the woods, and a little birdy told me, you ain’t long for a world without shock therapy an’ orderlies holdin’ ya down an’ forcing happy pills down yer fuckin’ _throat_.”

“I don’t have to listen to this.”

“Aww, you don’t even want to know who that little birdy was? I’ll even give ya a hint. Short, frowny, wearing the bastard child of Robin and some League shit—though I guess that’d be fitting, bein’ the spawn of the Demon and the ex-Bat’s _real_ son an’ all.”]

“Shut _up._ ”

Whatever’s going down in the Replacement’s skull, it can’t be good: Dent manages to get a hand beneath him, getting ready to flip over and turn the fucking tables, but before he even gets _close_ , the Replacement’s _bo_ staff flashes out in a whirl of titanium and pain and _smashes_ into the base of Dent’s skull. He’s out like a damn light.

Hood can practically _feel_ the anger bubbling beneath the surface. Time to press the advantage ….

“Whaddya know?” Hood cackles into the fluorescence-choked air hanging between them. “Turns out the rest ‘a us were just stand-ins the whole time. _Replacements_ for what he thought he saw in the first. Who gives a shit, eh? Ain’t like it _matters_ now, what with the big old Bat bein’ deader than dead. But … no. _You_ don’t think that, do ya? At’s why Dickiebird wants to lock you up with the _rest_ of us crazies.”

“I’m _not_ insane,” the Replacement hisses, “and Dick _knows_ it. He just doesn’t want to admit to the truth.”

He levels his best cowl-covered glare at Hood. A-fucking-dorable.

“Hah! Ya almost sound as sincere as me when _I_ said that straight to the Bat’s face. Didn’t keep _me_ outta Arkham though, and it sure as hell won’t do _shit_ for you. But you go ahead and keep tellin’ yourself that. _Lyin’_ to yourself. Just means ya won’t see it comin; when ‘Gotham’s _New_ Dark Knight’ comes ‘round to bag ‘n tag ya.”

The whiteouts on the Replacement’s cowl move like he’s narrowing his eyes at Hood. His hand drifts to the utility belt, thumbing at the pocket where Hood’s guessing something sharp and throwable is hiding.

What’s he gonna do? _Slit Hood’s throat?_

He sees the decision being made before the Replacement even knows he’s made it. The kid sighs, shoulders slumping just a little. They ain’t gonna duke it out tonight. Shame, really. Hood’s gauntlets coulda used a little coating of _blood_.

The Replacement walks to the end of the catwalk, stepping on Dent’ back as he goes. There’s that little cart at the end of it where Dent was hoarding drills and crowbars and such – torture instruments – and he pulls out something small and dark. Plastic-looking.

He turns and holds it up, flicking the little switch on the thing’s top.

It crackles with static. Probably a _two_ -way communicator, knowing Dent.

From where he’s still hanging, Hood can’t hear what the Replacement says into it, but he _does_ hear the way the kid slams it back down on the table when he’s done. Right before he… shoots a line into the rafters and uses it to drop down to the ground floor? What?

“You’re _runnin’?_ Just like that? What the –?” Hood snarls, tipping his head forward as far as possible just in time to see the Replacement throw open the warehouse’s dockside doors. They swing wide, and the rank air of the harbor rushes in. Thank fucking god for his helmet’s filters

“You see,” the Replacement starts, doing this dramatic little over-the-shoulder half turn. Great. _More_ people that it’s always _effect_ with. “I _was_ going to let you get out on your own and see what you could salvage here, but since you were rude, I just sent an anonymous tip to a frequency that _you-know-who_ monitors. You _know_ how quickly our ‘mutual friend’ jumps at the chance to see you, so I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Actually, I think I saw the Batmobile parked about a neighborhood and a half over on my way here, so they’ll probably be _sooner_ than soon.”

“Cancel that _fucking_ tip you little – _fuck you_ , Replacement! I’ll kill you myself!” Green flashes through Hood’s vision, threading itself into the brightness of the warehouse’s lights. He _almost_ doesn’t try to fight it back.

“Well, you can try. But aren’t you a little _tied up_ at the moment?” The Replacement’s all smug with this little smirk that Hood wants to _beat_ off of his _fucking face._

“Just _wait_ until I get down, you little shit,” Hood growls, kicking just enough to get himself swinging again. “I’m gonna hunt you down and hurt you so bad you _beg_ me to kill you. Then, I’mma cut you into so many pieces that even a _Lazarus Pit_ wouldn’t bring you back.”

That – _that_ seems to shake him a bit. But the fucker just plasters one ‘a Dickiebird’s thousand-watt smiles all over his face and says, “Sounds fun. I’m looking forward to it.”

Hood _screams_ at him. There might be some words or death threats in there too, but he can’t really tell.

Outside of the building, the distant rumbling of what’s basically a high-speed tank echoes a few blocks off. Both of them glance at the door.

“And that would be them,” the Replacement says, still all fake cheer. “Well, I’m going to get out of dodge. But _you_ have fun with those chains. By the way, I took the liberty of tossing your guns and knives into the harbor, so, even if you get free, don’t think you can just shoot at them when they get here.”

And the green comes _rushing_ back. Not enough to pull him under, not yet, but –

“ _Fuck you_ ,” he shouts in the general direction of what’s about to be the Replacement’s disappearing act “– come _back_ , you little asshole. _This_ is _your_ fault and – _“_

But the kid’s already out the door. “Good luck!” He _chirps_ at Hood, right before firing off his grapple and getting the hell away from the warehouse.

Hood kicks out again, this time coming just close enough to the catwalk to hook a leg over the rail and _twist –_

_There._ Whoever tied him up made a big _fucking_ mistake.

He gets out of the chains in record time. Who knew that the threat of being guilt-tripped and sent back to the same facility that holds his murderer would be such good motivators?

No thanks to that little bastard, of course. Hood only _just_ manages to get out of the warehouse before Dick and the demon freak burst in to a pile of beat-up thugs. That ammo cache he’d been here to take off their hands? Ten minutes from being confiscated by the GCPD, probably.

_Shit_.

The next time he sees that bastard, Jason’s gonna break his _fucking_ knees in a way that won’t heal too pretty. He won’t be able to pull off his little cut and run trick so well then, huh?

 

____________________________________

 

Turns out it isn’t so simple.

The end of summer means a lot of things for Gotham.

An early autumn wind sweeps down from the Atlantic, and the cold of it sinks down into the city’s very bones. Students who are crazy or desperate enough to study at Gotham University filter back into town for the new semester. The city’s trees start to turn from green to bright, lurid oranges and reds that burn like fire in the corners of Jason’s eyes.

And, like clockwork, Black Mask’s men hit the streets to collect their quarterly ‘protection’ fees.

Jason’s barely stepped out of his safe house when he sees it: two men walking down the street, slightly better dressed and _definitely_ better armed than most of the rest of the Narrows. From his rooftop perch, he sees them slink towards one of the small, locally owned corner stores. One of those places that struggles to get by each year but still makes up the backbone of the community.

One of the places under _Hood’s_ protection.

The first of Sionis’ men opens the shop door quietly – politely, even – and greets the owner.

Sionis’ second man leans against the outside wall, keeping watch. He’s thin and wiry enough that he nearly disappears in the shadows of the Narrows’ dusk. Every thirty seconds, he takes another drag of the cheap cigarette hanging off his lips.

Inside, the first man opens with the very unsubtle move of putting his piece on the counter and leaning into it, like he’s telling a secret. Jason doesn’t have to be close to know that he’s probably rattling off some spiel about how _dangerous_ the city can get and how he has an _offer_ that the man should definitely consider if he _knows what’s good for him_.

The owner doesn’t seem shaken yet – it’s Gotham, this guy probably used to have assholes like this come in every other Tuesday before Hood took up in the neighborhood – but he seems to be inching toward something under the counter, and Jason would bet his favorite jacket that it’s a shotgun.

The few lingering customers in the store catch onto what’s happening and slip out quietly. The man with the cigarette lets them go, but he watches them all the while.

No one calls the cops.

And no one should. Not when they live in a neighborhood where income level and skin color factor into their ‘unalienable rights.’ Or when Sionis has a cop or twenty in his pocket that he makes _damn_ sure are assigned to the areas he’s extorting.

Besides, ‘justice system’ has always been a misnomer. If Jason learned one thing growing up here, it’s that justice only happens if you _make_ it happen, no matter what the Commissioner, the Mayor, or even the _goddamn Batman_ have to say about it.

The guy arguing with the store owner lets his fingers curl tighter around the gun’s grip. Even across the road and two stories up, his thumb looks like it’s about to flip the safety off.

Jason’s hands clench on his helmet for only a second before he slides it on. The air locks seal with a pneumatic _hiss_ , and he checks his guns one last time. Still there, thankfully.

He takes a moment to offer a silent prayer for his last set of them, now regretfully resting at the bottom of Gotham harbor.

Now, grappling lines cost a lot of money. But at only three stories and _with_ a convenient fire escape, Hood can _more_ than handle the drop.

He doesn’t even _try_ to stealth it. Just puts himself in a controlled fall to the alley floor, landing on one knee in a pose that hurts about just as much as it looks _badass_ . Some genius even decided that _red_ was the right color for the building’s back alley door light, so when he stands to his full height at the front of it, the light probably makes his silhouette look like some sorta hellish spirit of vengeance.

The guy guarding the store certainly seems to think so. One look and the cigarette he’d been working his way through is on the ground, smoldering against the broken concrete. He fumbles with the shop’s door in his rush to get inside, surprising his partner enough that the shopkeeper manages to get that gun out from under the counter and point it at the first thug’s head.

Perfect. Hood loves to see people take initiative.

By the time he saunters into the store all easy like, the former cigarette holder is shaking in his boots. The first guy’s a little more collected – has seniority, probably – but he _does_ have a gun to his head. He ain’t making a move anytime soon. The shopkeeper looks at him nervously, which, fair enough. Most people around here still think the Hood’s about as real as _Batman_ – so, not at all. He doesn’t exactly expect the welcome wagon when he busts onto a scene like this.

“Now,” Hood says, fingers dancing across the grip of the gun in his right holster. “What are a couple of scumbags like you doin’ in _my_ neighborhood?”

Scumbag Two starts to stammer out an answer before Scumbag One drives an elbow into his guts. The shop owner jolts in response, but the trigger remains unpulled.

Not that it’d be a loss or anything, but Hood needs these guys at least a _little_ alive so that he can send a _message_.

“What’s it to you?” the first thug finally asks. Cute.

“Well, you see.” Hood takes a step closer. Another. Scumbag Two steps back. “I was just goin’ for a little walk. Mindin’ my own business. An’ suddenly I see a couple of Black Mask’s men,” he pauses here for dramatic effect. If Scumbag One is surprised that he knows who they are, he doesn’t show it.

“So, I’m thinking to myself, ‘what could they possibly be doing here?’ Last I heard, this part’a the city was under the protection of the Red Hood. An’ see, he don’t take too kindly ta’ _tresspassin’._ Pretty sure there’s a couple a former crime lord’s bodies hangin’ on the bridge just outside ‘a Gotham proper to prove it, too.”

“Now, look,” Scumbag Two stutters, “Mask’s got claim on this area. But you go and take this up with him, and we’ll let you off easy.”

Hood nearly _laughs_ at that. Little weasel’s got some _nerve._

Scumbag One turns to look at Two like he’s an idiot. And he is.

Faster than they can _blink_ Hoods got both semi-autos out. One for each goon.

“Hey,” Scumbag One says nervously, “lets work this out like _civilized_ – ”

_Bang_.

One shot, and the guy’s knee is _gone._ He falls to the ground, clutching at it and swearing up a storm.

“Sorry, you were sayin’?”

Scumbag Two takes another step back. So does the shop owner. Hood wonders if the owner thinks he’s _also_ here to rob him.

Whatever. He’ll bag and tag these losers and _then_ sort it out. At least the first goon’s mostly out of commission. Collapsed on the floor and staring out somewhere past where Hood is standing. Yeah, he’s not going to take long.

“Any last words?” Hood gives him a kick right in the _gut_ for good measure. Or maybe just to be petty. Either way, it _does_ jolt the asshole back into actually _looking_ at the guy who’s going to be his judge, jury, and executioner.

“Yeah,” the guy grinds out through clenched teeth. A cough tears through him, sending him shuddering on the floor.

“… well?”

The guy convulses again. This _sound_ keeps coming out of his throat like –

Like those aren’t coughs. The fucker is _laughing_.

“Be – “ The guy splutters mid sentence. His grin is sharp and near-feral. _“– behind you_.”

“What?” Hood ducks away from the guy – no good turning his back on an active threat, after all – and shifts to face the road.

_Fuck._ It’s a fucking _ambush_.

Outside the store, lined up like a bunch of psychopathic murder birds, are at least ten of Sionis’ men. They’re all decked out in what looks like paramilitary gear and are packing some _serious_ heat. The woman in the middle has a _rocket launcher_ for fuck’s sake.

No Sionis to be seen, though. Hood isn’t sure if he should be relieved or insulted.

He doesn’t have time to decide. Hood knows what’s happening the second one of Mask’s goons raises their gun. The floor is _not_ conducive to sliding, but he fucking _dives_ for the cover of the wall beneath the street-facing window just as the bullet hits and the thing _shatters_ like the fucking _cheap_ shit it is. A thousand shards of razor-sharp glass, curios, and whatever random bullshit the owner decided to hang in the window come _flying_ inward.

Hood glances back across the inside of the store. The owner, who had ducked behind the counter with his shotgun the moment he saw Mask’s reinforcements, seemed mostly unhurt.

The Mask henchmen who Hood had downed earlier had started trying to crawl his way to the street. His tall and idiotic friend had a different idea. He’d pressed himself against the wall farthest from the door and had begun trying to sneak around the counter. Probably trying to get the shotgun from the store’s owner and even the odds inside the building.

Not on Hood’s watch.

Without a second thought, he aims and shoots. Crouching on the floor behind a half wall doesn’t really make the _best_ angle in the world, but he doesn’t necessarily need accuracy here. What was supposed to be a shot in the guy’s shoulder becomes a bullet lodged in his gut. Nothing lethal, probably, but the guy crumples to the floor anyway, crying out in pain.

“Red Hood!” someone shouts like they’re trying to sell it as a headline. “You’ve interfered with Black Mask’s operations for the last time.”

He pokes his head above the wall, peering past the jagged remains of the window’s glass. It’s the rocket launcher-toting minion who’s talking, but that’s about all he gets before some asshole with a sawed-off takes a couple of pot-shots at him.

Hood yanks his head back behind the edge of the wall. Half the shot flyes over the wall, pinging off the metal shelves holding the store’s goods. The other half hits the storefront, splintering the wood in a series of audible _thwacks_.

His muscle memory’s about all that keeps his head from ending up as a motorcycle helmet‘s worth of brain purée.

“And, _what?_ ” he yells back. “He sent _you_ over to deal with it? Tell Sionis that if he wants a piece of me, he better come out here and take it himself.”

The woman makes a sound that might have been a laugh. “And make him waste his time?” she asks. “You’d hardly be worth it. But as for a piece of you, I’m sure he’ll cut his due off your corpse… when he has time to deal with the _refuse_.”

Hood has the sudden, shudder-inducing thought that Sionis might be planning to cut off his face and glue it over that monstrosity that’s already stuck to his own. Maybe even making that creepy as all hell Hannibal Lecter sound while he’s at it.

“Tell Sionis that he’ll never have my face!” Hood yells.

“What?” he hears the woman mutter, audibly confused. The rest of the goons follow suit.

While they’re trying to figure out what he meant by that, he brings a hand up, waving it to get the shopkeeper’s attention.

“Does this place have back rooms?” he asks.

The guy nods frantically.

“Then hide there! I’ll keep them here, but you have to get the fuck out of the line of fire. That asshole near the back should be out for the count, but if he gives you trouble, kick him right where I shot him.”

“What about you?” The shopkeeper almost looks worried.

“It’s fine,” Hood hisses, “I’ll keep their attention here. But if you want to live, you need to go _now.”_

With a nod, the shopkeeper makes a dash for it. He’s out of view of the assholes outside, so they don’t even react when he darts for the back of the store.

Hood hears a strangled yelp and a small, vindictive laugh. A glance tells him that the shopkeeper _did_ kick Sionis’ goon after all. Good for him.

Now, all he can hope is that he can draw these assholes’ fire long enough to make sure the civilian gets out alive. Just like the bad old times.

Well, here’s something that definitely _ain’t_. As Mask’s idiots are finishing their deliberations, Hood rolls to Mr. Busted Knee as he’s trying to make his snail-like escape. The guy struggles, but it’s weak enough that Hood barely notices. He digs a hand into the back of the guy’s obnoxiously expensive jacket and stands, hauling the guy with him.

Scumbag One practically _squeeks_.

“Don’t shoot!” he screams. His voice is pure _panic_ , and it gets Hood’s heart _pumping_.

Unbelievably, they actually _do_ hold their fire.

Hood presses the advantage and walks his extortionist-turned-meatshield to the door. He only gets about a foot past it before their rocket launcher-wielding leader sees what’s happening.

“ _Quiet,_ ” she hisses, smacking the guy to her right. They simmer down and begin to take stock of the situation. Hood estimates he’s got about ten seconds tops before they decide this guy is expendable and start trying to shoot _through_ him, but he’ll take what he can get.

But four and a half seconds into that count, some asshole decides the boss lady’s command isn’t worth shit.

The trigger-happy bastard with the sawed-off shotgun – who Hood now sees is packing at least _three_ more strapped to impractical places like a fucking amateur gun nut – raises it to ready position, taking aim at the squirming, pleading goon who’s all that’s standing between a shitton of lead balls and Hood’s gut, and –

The streetlights just barely catch a blur of red and gold as it flashes down from the rooftop behind the goons, hitting home as it lodges itself in the shotgun’s chamber.

Hood snarls.

Seriously. He doesn’t have _time_ for this bullshit.

Confused, the shotgun wielder holds his gun up to the light, tilting his head like that will somehow clarify exactly what he’s looking at.

Hood doesn’t need to tilt his head. Hell, he doesn’t even need to be as close as that asshole is to know exactly _who’s_ decided to drop in for a visit.

“Long time, no see, Hood,” the goddamn Replacement says, smirking down at all of them from his rooftop perch. “I guess it’s true what they say about this being a small city…”

About as in-unison as unpracticed hired muscle can get, the thugs turn to face the sound of the kid’s voice. Some hold their hands up against the glare of the streetlights. It doesn’t help much. Hood can tell from their muttering that they can’t pinpoint exactly _where_ he is.

And then – instead of staying hidden behind the scenes like a good little (ex) Robin – the twerp just _stands the fuck up_ , letting the light from the street glint off the black-gold of his harness and shine dully in the armored red tunic of the Red Robin uniform. As much as Hood hates to admit it, it really is something of a _sight_.

“ _Fuck!_ ” one of the goons snarls. “There’s _two_ of ‘em – ”

Hood’s been told that he wouldn’t know a good thing if it came up and bit him in the ass.

It’s times like these that he wonders if whoever said that had a point.

He clears his throat, getting the goons’ attention once more. Only about half of them turn to face him, the other half caught up trying to figure out which of Gotham’s vigilantes _this_ one is. And how much of a threat he poses.

“We _ain’t_ together,” Hood hisses, tightening his grip on Scumbag One.

“Wow. _Rude,_ ” the Replacement calls down. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that that isn’t the way to make friends?”

“Anyone ever tell you to _fuck off?_ ”

“In this city?” The kid gives a slight, sardonic chuckle. They way it echoes off the buildings is downright unnerving. “All the time.”

“Yeah, well. Now _I’m_ tellin’ ya. Get the fuck outta here, Replacement.”

“ _Make_ me.”

That little _bastard_.

“Then come the hell down here! I _fucking_ dare you. See if I _don’t_ put the next bullet in your girly little knee.”

“You talk a big game, Hood. But you seem a little busy at the moment. What with Black Mask’s D-list squad getting the best of you and all.”

“ _Fuck you,”_ Hood yells up at him, the mooks, anyone who’s listening, really. “Listen here, if you want to walk out of here more or less intact, you’re all gonna put down your guns _nice_ and _slow_. An’ then we’re all gonna go our separate ways.”

“Are you kidding me?” The guy two goons to Rocket Launcher’s left squeaks. “Mask gave us a _kill order_. Ain’t no backing out of that. Look, buddy, it’s you or us.”

Behind the helmet, the smile Hood gives the guy is sharp enough to _cut_.

“I was hopin’ you’d say that.” Before the guy can get another word, the gun aimed at the meatbag’s head is pointing straight at the speaker. He crumples in a pile of sudden and unpredictable deadness. A bullet between the eyes will do that to you.

“Hood!” The Replacement shouts from the roof, outraged. Hood lines up another shot, meaning to get at least one more of these guys on the ground before the rest of them spring to action, but the little fucker throws something and he can’t see shit.

Smoke pellets. Hood’s got a helmet that filters that shit out of his air, but that doesn’t do shit for actually _seeing_ where he’s going.

The meatshield’s outlived his usefulness, so with a sharp twist of his neck, Hood puts him back on the ground where he belongs. From there, he just follows the coughing to the next mook in need of killing.

He gets the vague sense that the Replacement dropped down on the other side of this sea of morons, probably so he can dispatch them nonlethally like a good little bat. But that’s a problem Hood can shoot when he gets to it.  

From out of the smoke, a woman charges him. She’s switched out her guns for a combat knife. Hood spins to meet her. She swings high and he ducks back, the edge of the blade sending the smoke just in front of his neck swirling in little eddies. He goes for an undercut but she twists out of the way. A knife aimed at Hood’s side gets knocked out of her hands, and he sweeps her feet out from under her as payment. She goes down. Hard. Hood pulls his gun before she can get back on her feet and makes sure she never will again.

Somewhere behind him is a gunshot – aimed in his general direction, too, from the puff of debris in the air and the way that the pavement next to him suddenly has a new hole in it. Hood ducks, using the thinning smokescreen to his advantage. He crouches low and rushes the guy, tackling him into a nearby wall.

The guy tries to get his pistol between them, but Hood clocks him in the head before he gets it there –

_Almost_ before he gets it there. The guy points his gun _up_ instead, fires, and Hood’s arm starts _burning_ as the bullet finds a structural weakness on the underside of his armor and lodges itself in his arm.

Hood _screams_ his rage, driving his fist so hard into the guy’s head that it comes away bloody. The goon’s eyes roll back and Hood lets him fall to the pavement below.

Two down, two more. His arm - fuck. _Fuck._

Hood slaps a hand over it. The motion stops the trickle of blood but hurts like _hell_.

FUCK.

He _doesn't_  have time for this. Green twitches through the scene before him. Hood lets it, and soon he has something _else_ to focus on. It’s a balancing act, fighting with the Pit. Give it a little control to get an edge, give it too much control and wake up a day later having murdered some civilians who just happened to get too close.

But that subtle tinge of it, just barely creeping along the edges of his vision. It’s _just_ enough that he can’t feel the arm. That he can keep _fighting_.

Hood grunts, steels himself, and turns his eyes away from the building, to the center of the road. What guards are left are scrambling to reorient themselves against the last of the smoke screen. But not fast enough. The next second Hood is _charging_ in with a fury that knocks them off their feet. They go down in a blur of pistol whips and headshots, and his arm is a dull ache but there’s grafication in the way that he’s more than a little bloodied by the end of it.

Just in time, too. The smoke finally clears as the last of the goons he could see go down, only the faintest wisps of it lingering along the broken pavement. About every other street light is blown out in the _good_ parts of the Narrows, but it’s just Hood’s luck that he’d managed to find two right next to each other that were still lit. Flickering and dull, true. But lit all the same. The light they cast is a sickly yellow, and it does nothing to hide the carnage of the corner store and the street outside of it.

Hood wonders if the shopkeeper was safe in his back room.

Across a field of bodies, the Replacement takes a step closer. Close enough for Hood to see that he’s not using the whiteout lenses on the cowl tonight. Light blue eyes stare back at him, pale and clear to the green-muddled teal of Hood’s own.

Not that the Replacement would be able to tell through the helmet.

Hood glances around behind the kid. The trail of bodies behind him look like they’re only unconscious. _And_ he’d found the time to zip-strip their hands behind their backs.

Fucking overachiever.

“Get the fuck out of the Narrows,” Hood growls. He’s always thought that the synths give that sort of thing extra effect.

But not here, not now. The kid just raises a skeptical eyebrow at him.

“And let you kill these ones too?” He sweeps a hand out behind him before bringing it back to cross his arms stubbornly. “I don’t think so.”

“What’re you gonna do then? Wait around for the _GCPD_ to collect them?” Hood throws a short, sharp laugh in the kid’s _face_ . “I ain’t seen a cop in the Narrows in _years_ , kid. But let’s assume for the sake of argument that they _do_ go to Blackgate. What makes you think Sionis don’t have men on the inside? That these assholes won’t get bumped off before _noon_ for failin’ ta’ take me out? Give me a _break_ , Replacement. Thought you’da learned by now that it’s just what scum like this _does_.”

The kid sneers. It pulls down on the edges of the cowl. “We have a _code_ , Hood,” he growls. And god, he sounds _just_ like the old bastard. “Randomly killing people because _you_ think they deserve it? Passing that kind of judgment on criminals makes you _just_ as bad.”

“ _We?_ ” he scoffs. “There ain’t no ‘we’ about it, kid. I _am_ a criminal, and I cop to that. But what I do ain’t even the slightest _bit_ random.”

“And _that’s_ the problem. It’s premeditated. It’s _murder_ . What you’re doing is _wrong_ , and it’s _not_ what _he_ would have wanted.”

Ain’t this supposed to be the _smart_ Robin?

“You think I give a _flying fuck_ what he’d have wanted? He’s _dead_ , Replacement. And you need to get it in your screwed up little head that _that’s_ the truth. Or are you just too scared to admit that you _lost_ Robin because Dickiebird finally realized that you’re fucking _batshit?”_ And Hood could just _laugh_ … “You were just some pathetic, _worthless_ , little runt who was so desperate for daddy’s approval that he went out and near got himself _killed_ every night trying to impress him. He only gave you that costume because he felt _guilty._  So, give me a break, Replacement. You ain’t _shit_.”

“Oh, _I’m_ not shit? That’s pretty rich from a guy who’s spent the last few years throwing a glorified _temper tantrum_. You got replaced? Just like _you_ replaced Dick? Well, go cry me a river. Here’s a newsflash you _utter_ _asshole_ , we _all_ get replaced and killing people to get ‘daddy’s’ attention isn’t going to change that.”

The kid snaps his _bo_ back into its retractable form and returns it to his suit’s utility belt. He spreads his arms out wide, letting the cape slip off them in a slide of dark Kevlar.

“You wanna go ahead and shoot me? _Fine_ . It won’t make _you_ feel any better, but, honestly, you’d be doing me a favor.”

Hood almost has to double take. What…?

Still, he aims the gun at his Replacement. Point blank.

“You got a death wish or somethin’? ‘Cause I can help with that.”

“Nah,” the kid sneers, “I just don’t think you’ll actually do it. Somewhere inside of you is someone who _wants_ to be a good person, Hood. And I think you haven’t buried that person  _nearly_ as well as you think you have.”

“You wanna bet?” Hood’s voice is low and quiet. Menacing. He takes a step closer. The rim of the barrel hovers not even an inch from a weak point in the suit _Hood_ designed.

The one being worn by a kid who seems more full of anger than sense. A kid who’s on his own, feeling the sting of being unwanted. Who got kicked to the curb the _second_ the newest model of Robin came along and –

And he can’t do it.

“Fuck,” Hood whispers, thumbing the safety back on. In a rush of anger, he throws the gun, sending it smashing into the nearby wall. “ _Fuck!”_ he _yells_ , this time.

The kid doesn’t even flinch.

Eyes dart to Hood’s wounded arm, but the kid knows better than to stick around and comment on it.

“Told you,” he mutters, going for his grapple gun while Hood’s still reeling. He fires it, latching on to the rooftop above them. “And, Jason? Try not to bleed out.”

And he’s off. One click of a button and he’s nothing more than a blur of darkness against the Gotham light pollution, disappearing into the skyline.

Jason pulls the helmet off, breathing fresh air for the first time in way too long. He looks at the downed henchmen, some bloodied and dead, others slumped in their unconsciousness.

He leaves them where they lie – dead and living alike – and makes his way to the fire escape. Whatever happens to the unlucky assholes the Replacement spared, Jason doesn’t want to know. It ain’t like he can get away with _not_ burning that safehouse anyway.

It’s only later that he wonders how improvised that entire scenario even was.

Playing up the Replacement angle? Daring Jason to shoot him while wearing Jason’s own costume? One that he wore when he was in _suspiciously_ similar circumstances to the ones the Replacement is dealing with now?

That little _fucker._ He set it up like Jason shooting him would be like shooting himself. And out of the two of them, Jason is the only one he can be _sure_ doesn’t want to die. And that... Jason has some complicated feelings about that. Yeah, sure. He’s tried to kill the kid in the past. But the Lazarus Pit was sunk in _deep_ then. And now….

At the lip of the fire escape’s alley, Jason falls against the building. He braces himself against the brickwork with his unhurt shoulder. One arm clutches at the other as well as it can while also keeping his helmet tucked against his side. The bullet’s in a place where some patience and a set of sterilized forceps will get it out, and the green’s retreated _just_ enough that he’s really starting to feel it.

But _fuck_. The kid had a point: he’s going to lose a lot of blood if he doesn’t fix this soon.

He glances up at the safe house he just left, weighing the pros and cons of immediate medical attention versus putting it off to spite a guy who isn’t even here _and_ who shouldn’t give a rat’s ass about his well being anyway.

Jason gives himself about a minute of internal debate, even though he knows that in the end it isn’t really a contest. As much as he hates to admit it.

With a sigh and a grunt, Jason puts the helmet back on and starts pulling himself back up the fire escape with one good arm and a stubborn streak that even dying couldn’t get rid of.

He should _really_ invest in a grapple gun one of these days. Or he should at least steal one…

 

____________________________________

 

The less that’s said about the third time he runs into the kid, the better.

But the fourth time. The fourth time, there are _ninja_.

They start trickling into the city around mid-November, but by the time a lot of Gotham families are sitting down to turkey dinners, they’re _everywhere_. Alleys. Rooftops. Jason’s favorite dive bar. Just, all over the fucking place like a swarm of sword-wielding shadows. Or ants.

They watch him with suspicion and guarded caution. He returns the favor. Maybe he even recognizes a few of them from his time with Talia. But Jason stays out of their way, mostly. He has to wrestle one of the ninja over a cigarette the day after they show up, but that’s the extent of his contact.

For about two weeks. Right up until the night before the big Macy’s helium fest, actually.

It’s the night of one of America’s biggest celebrations of rampant consumerism when Ra’s al Ghul himself hijacks the nation’s airwaves to broadcast some prepared speech he carted with him all the way from wherever the fuck he operated out of these days.

And Jason _does_ mean ‘carted.’ If there’s one thing that pompous, immortal asshole knows how to do, it’s talking _for_ -fucking- _ever_ . Jason had been _lucky_ that the old bastard had been out of commission during his time as Talia’s ‘guest’ in Nanda Parbat...

Perched on a barstool, hunched over a double-shot of celebratory bourbon, Jason isn’t drunk enough to hear it. He just wants to sit in this small, cramped, surprisingly overcrowded bar, to lean on the sticky counter, and to drink his pre-Thanksgiving dinner in peace.

It lasts about ten minutes before the bartender – a lovely woman who gives a different name each time Jason bothers to ask – jumps up like a wing spiker and uses all of the power in her short-as-hell body to smack the side of the ceiling-mounted, ancient TV.

Hell, Jason’s always been a fan of hitting things to cooperate. But it’s even better when it actually _works_. The screen fizzles and pops, static taking over the space that Ra’s’ excessively manscaped face had previously occupied. Eventually, the green of his cloak is replaced by the equally tacky green of Gotham City Stadium astroturf. The Knights game, Jason sees when he glances up. The fourth quarter and they’re up by six. A group of memorabilia-clad losers in the bar’s back booths cheer drunkenly.

Jason takes another drink.

The fans get a solid minute of game time before Ra’s feed wins out, drowning out the footage of the game. There’s a chorus of booing and at least one frustrated bout of drunken crying before the bartender finally tells the group to shut up or get out. They take option number two.

The bartender takes one final, unimpressed look at the TV screen where Ra’s has started going on about ‘the garish display of America’s flagrant consumerism ’ and tries changing the channel instead of hitting it this time. The number on screen changes. The picture flickers, but it picks back up just as Ra’s is getting to ‘will _truly_ be a ‘Black’ Friday, for once I am finished, the streets shall be so full of dark-garbed mourners that – ”

“Just turn that shit off,” Jason mumbles from behind his drink, “you already know it’s going to be everywhere.”

She shrugs and clicks the screen off with a muttered curse.

“Fucking nutjobs,” she growls, pulling out a bar rag and putting the bare minimum effort into cleaning a glass left behind by an earlier patron. It’s just for appearances. God knows no one coming _here_ expects anything as quaint as something _clean_ to drink from.

The glass clinks against the rest of the set when it’s returned to its cabinet. She makes it through two more before either of them speaks again.

“But… I suppose it’s been a while since we had a good, old fashioned megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur,” she says, conversationally, as if they were talking about how damn miserable Gotham’s weather always is. “Gotta say I prefer this crap to that Joker asshole. ‘Least _this_ one ain’t too liable to come in here ‘an start killin’ off my patrons.”

Jason nods sagely. Ra’s wouldn’t be caught dead in here, so it’s a decent take for someone who (probably) doesn’t run around in spandex and punch people.

“Clientele’s important.” Jason throws back the rest of the drink. It burns pleasantly and goes down much more smoothly than he’s used to. Tonight, he bothered splurging on quality alcohol. “Though I think you might’a actually picked up some ‘a that megalomaniac’s people here and there.”

“Oh?”

He can’t tell is she’s being _deliberately_ obtuse, or if she genuinely doesn’t notice the pair of obvious ninja drowning their sorrows in a nearby booth. Jason nods pointedly in their direction just to drive the point home.

“Nah,” she shrugs, “they’re regulars. They come in ‘round this time each week wearin’ whatever the hell those outfits are supposed to be. Almost single handedly out-drink my entire evenin’ crowd, too. And drinking contests bring in business, so whatever weird cosplay or fetish shit they’re into ain’t my concern.”

Jason hides a snort behind one hand. Ra’s’ ninja _do_ wear a lot of leather… but he also gets the distinct impression that it’s the line she uses when the cops come asking around about potentially villainous regulars.

“How many shots they at?” Jason eyes the bottles stacked neatly behind the bar.

“More than you,” she says, cryptically. “They came in one day back ‘round June with some bald British chick. She dragged ‘em straight to the counter and ordered shots of what they’re drinking now. They’re fast learners though. Now, they just buy the bottle upright at the beginning of the night.”

Jason glances over. One of the ninja does two shots in quick succession. Her friend looks like she’s egging her on. If that bottle started out full…

“Hey,” the bartender cuts in, “I ain’t lookin’ for criticism. Money’s money. And it ain’t my problem what my customers do to their lives _or_ their livers.”

“Ain’t sayin’ it is…” Jason motions to his glass. He can’t have offended her too much, since she tops it off without complaint.

He waits just long enough for her to move to the other end of the bar before he takes a long drink. The condensation budding on its sides is practically ambrosia in the humidity of too many losers without family to go to on a pre-Thanksgiving night. Or maybe they just finally realized that there’s nothing left in the world to be thankful for.

Jason takes another sip. Talia always told him he turned into something of a nihilist after three drinks.

He tries to focus on the bourbon, the burn of it. But Jason’s attention keeps getting drawn back to the two ninja across the bar.

There’s nothing particularly fascinating about either of them, unless you count the fact that they’re a couple of honest-to-god ninja chilling in one of Gotham’s seedier dive bars. But this is _Gotham_. This city’s produced everything from killer clowns to sentient murder puppets. Almost everyone else in here has probably seen weirder than Ra’s’ people.

But Jason’s working on a theory, here. Back when he was with Talia, most of the ninja he knew couldn’t handle their liquor. So, going by the alcohol _these_ two have consumed, they’re probably a couple of the ninja Ra’s keeps permanently stationed in Gotham. Ones who have gone native. And going by the fact that they’re _here_ instead of helping out with Ra’s’ latest scheme…

Yeah, Jason’s drawing a blank on that one. But just because these two (potentially) aren’t considered competent enough to stay enough in the League’s good graces to get a better posting, that doesn’t mean they can’t be _useful._

Hell, they probably know the way to one of Ra’s caches.

Jason looks at the ninja, then back to his bourbon. Then the ninja once more.

Fuck it. Back in the summer, he had to leave his _kris_ behind when Dickiebird caught him using it to carve out a would-be rapist’s lungs. And when you’re looking for a good blade, stealing from the League’s not a bad way to go…

Jason drains his glass, pays his tab, and saunters not at _all_ drunkenly to the outside wall of the bar. He fishes a cigarette out of its pack and, when the two ninja finally make their way out of the bar, he asks them for a light.

They’re drunk enough that they don’t see the ambush coming.

 

____________________________________

 

It’s a universal rule that, no matter what city you’re in, warehouses at night are creepy as all hell. Case in point: an abandoned LexCorp storage center, built right in the heart of the industrial district right before Wayne Industries finally managed to chase Luthor out of town.

Run down? Check.

Isolated? Check.

Abandoned? Not even close.

The warehouse is absolutely _crawling_ with ninja. Even without the slightly-coerced information from the ninja in the bar, it wouldn’t take a genius to tell that this is where Ra’s set up shot for his little Black Friday stunt.

Hood scopes it out from a nearby roof. The district is old, mainly derelict factories. Not a lot of foot traffic during the week, let alone on a Friday night when half of Gotham is convinced it can get that shiny new flatscreen  for cheap. Between that and the blown-out streetlights, it’s easy enough to give the ninja’s perimeter patrols the slip.

Too easy, maybe.

Hood’s no expert on ninja, but he likes to think all his time in Talia’s assassin city taught him a thing or two about what the League expects from its foot soldiers. Not talking to each other on their rounds, for one. And not leaving any witnesses, for another. While Hood’s skulking around the rooftops, he doesn’t even _have_ to intercede when a few unlucky civilians stumble across one of the patrols. The ninja send them packing with stern glares instead of slit throats, and it’s honestly one of the most bizarre things Hood’s seen on the streets in a while.

Not that he really cares. If Ra’s shows up for an unscheduled inspection, these guys are going to very quickly become acquainted with the business edge of Ra’s’ sword, but as far as Hood’s concerned, that’ll just mean fewer mooks he has to bust his way through the next time the League tries fucking with him.

Besides, ninja gone soft make for a good distraction. While those chumps are letting civilians leave with their lives, Hood sneaks right past them. Ducking through alleys and across quiet streets in a circuitous route is slow going, but by the time Hood’s circled around enough times to reach the back door of the warehouse, he hasn’t tripped a single alarm.

And, like they’re just _asking_ to be raided, these idiots only put one ninja on the door.

Tucked away in the shadow of the alley, Hood shuffles along the wall just out of the sentry’s line of sight. Gloved fingers trace the edges of the masonry, feeling out the mortar between the bricks. It flakes away at a touch; the building is just as old as the rest of the district, and it isn’t long before Hood can dig his fingers into a particularly loose brick and work it out of the wall.

Now, bricks aren’t exactly the most aerodynamic things in the world, but Hood’s had a lot of practice. Mainly on empty beer bottles, but that’s just semantics.  

He pulls his arm back, lines up the shot, and lets the thing _fly_.

_Boom_. Headshot.

The ninja crumples in a heap.

In a flash, Hood crosses the wide, dark road. He pats down the ninja and pulls out one of the guy’s sturdier knives. With one hand he holds the ninja up, and with the other he stabs the wall hard enough that the blade passes through fabric and thin steel alike. When he steps back, the ninja slumps against the wall, unconscious but upright.

It won’t fool anyone who decides to get too close, but from a distance it should do the trick.

It only takes about two minutes of Hood’s pick and torsion wrench bottomed out in the door’s lock to get that glorified slab of steel swinging open with a slow, mournful creak.

There are lights on inside, but they’re distant. One hanging above a catwalk on the other side of the warehouse, one shining through the windows of the office about three stories up. Probably a break room for the ninja, if Hood’s guessing.

The place is _packed_ with boxes as far as Hood can see. There’s everything from small, cardboard ones that Hood could probably dropkick across half of Gotham to giant, could-be-hiding-an-entire-car-sized crates. If there’s a sorting system, Hood can’t tell what it is. That’s probably intentional though. Hood gets paranoid too when his shit’s this close to somewhere a Bat might find it.

Still, that’s a lot of stuff to go through. In some places, things are stacked nearly a story tall, and, even when Hood finds a way past the first Great Wall of Boxes by the warehouse’s back door, the rest of them are arranged like a fucking labyrinth. There’s not going to be any _easy_ way to get what he wants, so he just goes for it. Hood shoulders his way past a tall, skinny thing that might hold a spear and a big, wide thing that has no clues as to what might be in it, but it makes a weird, hollow _thunking_ noise when he accidentally catches the edge of it with his boot.

The way is slow going. Every time he turns a corner, it seems like there’s another ninja to dodge around or knock out. Sometimes he’s lucky and manages to see them before they see him – getting out of the way is down to just ducking into any of the statistically improbable number of crates left conveniently open – but sometimes luck’s a bitch. It’s more than a few ninja that Hood has to choke out and dump unceremoniously into a waiting box.

He could kill them. He _should_ kill them. Assassinations, kidnappings, resurrection of the _goddamn_ dead; Ra’s and his people have done _more_ than enough to deserve it several times over. But –

But.

The ninja were actually talking to one another like actual fucking human beings. They _let civilians go_ . And that – what is Hood even supposed to _think_ about that?

He doesn’t know.

So he chalks it up to being in the giving spirit and lets them keep the air in their lungs a little longer – at least after he drops them out of the chokeholds that send them to the goddamn floor. Besides, for the unconscious ninja that he _can’t_ find convenient hiding places for for, chances are that Ra’s will find them passed out and do Hood’s job for him. ‘Incompetence,’ or some bullshit. Like there’s any option other than _losing_ when you’re up against the Red fucking Hood.

But, Hood has always had a habit of speaking too soon.

It’s about an hour before he manages to slowly, _silently_ work his way to the center of the crate maze. How does he know it’s the center? Well, the League took a few measures to make that _obvious_ . First, it’s all open and shit. Where the rest of the maze was narrow enough that Hood couldn’t stretch both arms out without hitting wood, _this_ space could probably fit two of him lying down head to toe.

It’s fucking incongruous is what it is.

And no one does that unless it’s _on purpose_. Like they’re highlighting something important. Or setting up for a trap. Probably both, in this case.

Second, and more importantly, the center of the open area is dominated by a large, ominously marked crate. Hood _wants_ to say that’s Arabic. But, not quite. It uses the same flowing script, but the shapes that would be letters are just _off_ enough to make Hood think of shit that, unless he wants to accidentally summon a demon, he should _really_ get Zatanna to give it a once over before he tries to open it.

Sure, they aren’t really on _speaking_ terms these days, but _come on._ The thing’s ominous as all hell, and they both have a vested interest in not letting unknown ominous bullshit moving around the country unchecked.

It isn’t wood like the rest of the containers. Instead, beneath the creepy, not-Arabic writing is a dull, smooth metal. Hood sees seams, though not ones he could wedge a knife into for some leverage. They all converge on top of the box like fucking Tron lines leading to a single, creepy keyhole.

Like, seriously creepy. The thing looks like someone took a dragon’s head and squished it down into a bas-relief. The keyhole’s right in its mouth, and the ends of the face are edged by grooves deep enough that Hood can’t see where they go. Hood gets the vague suspicion that those grooves are hiding more of the thing’s head, and that if he gets his lock pick anywhere near it, those jaws are going to come down on his hands like some sort of built-in bear trap.

What the _fuck._

It’s not exactly new-level creepy for Ra’s, but it _is_ exactly the sort of thing the bastard would have sitting around his creepy, ninja-infested warehouse. _And_ it’s exactly the sort of box that Ra’s would use to store something _unbelievably_ expensive. Like, enough to cover Hood’s expensive for months or _years_ if he sells it on Gotham’s black market sort of expensive.

Hood takes one look at it and turns back around, but only as far as the last ninja he knocked out. A quick pocket search produces a long dagger. It’s long and thin – easily the length of Hood’s forearm – and he marches determinedly towards the box with every intention of using it to mess with the weird dragon lock from a distance at which he’s unlikely to lose any fingers.

He almost gets there, too. Hood’s right in front of the box, one arm leaned on it for leverage, with the dagger poised above the thing’s mouth, when someone talking out of _nowhere_ sends him half jumping out of his own _skin._

A voice Hood had _really_ been hoping not to hear again for a good, long while says, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Hood looks up and – of fucking _course_. The Replacement stares down at him from on top of a stack of crates twice Hood’s height. _Casually_. Like he owns the place. He has one leg propped up and is flipping his retracted _bo_ with one hand. _How_ the ninja haven’t spotted him there, Hood has no idea. How _Hood_ didn’t see him there either is –

No. The little bastard couldn’t have been there the whole time, could he have? Even _he’s_ not that sneaky. Even if this _is_ becoming a pattern.

“The fuck do you want?” Hood hisses beneath his breath, barely looking up. It’s quiet, on account of any passing ninja, but the kid hears him anyway because he tilts his head at Hood in a way that makes him look like a goddamn bird.

“Me?” he asks. “Not a thing. _You_ , on the other hand…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m helpin’ myself to Ra’s’ stash. So what? Stealin’ from pricks is illegal too, now?” Hood narrows his eyes. It doesn’t really translate through the helmet, but too fucking bad. The kid was trained to read body language just like the rest of them.

“You here to stop me?” Hood asks. He’s not looking for a fight tonight, but if the kid wants to bring one to him, he’s fucking _game_ . He might not be about killing the little bastard anymore, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t adverse to a little _smackdown_.

But, just as fucking usual, the world seems to be hell-bent on letting him down.

“No,” the Replacement says, shrugging a little. In that costume, it makes him look even more like a fucking prick. “I’m not here to stop _anything_ , unless you count stopping Ra’s from…”

The kid sighs.

“…never mind. Look, help yourself for all I care. Just, not with _that_ .” He makes a vague gesture toward the dagger that Hood still has poised over the lock. “You might not lose the hand, but you _will_ get electrocuted within an inch of your life. And if you think I’m going to drag your fried ass out of here, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Counter offer: you either get down here and help me get this thing open or you just shut the fuck _up_ for once. Fuckin’ a, kid. You’re getting as bad about the monologuing as the guy who owns the place.

Behind the cowl, the kid narrows his eyes. “ _That_ was uncalled for. Besides, I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you open it. I just wouldn’t recommend using _that_.” He levels an expression of distaste at the dagger clenched in Hood’s hand.  

 

“Here,” he says, pulling something out of a compartment on his suit’s utility belt. “catch.”

It goes sailing through the air, glinting in the distant incandescent light. Hood reaches a gloved hand up to catch it, narrowing his eyes as his fingers close fully around a long, intricate key.

It looks like it could be a match.

“You realize that you havin’ this just raises more questions than it answers, right?” Hood glances back up at the kid, but there’s no real curiosity in the words. He isn’t Saint Dick – whatever the kid’s up to with the League isn’t his problem.

“Questions for _you_ , maybe. Not that the answers are any of your business.”

“Like I’d care what your little twerp ass gets caught up in. Not _everythin’_ is about _you_.”

“I can live with that,” he says. “Now, are you going to open it or not?”

“ _You’re_ the asshole who had the key. Sure you don’t want to do the honors?”

The kid has the audacity to _smile_ . Beatifically, too, like he’s just _indulging_ Hood. “I believe in a more hands-on pedagogy.”

Hood scowls. If _either_ of them is the teacher here… “Like Bat, like Bird,” he growls. “What’d you do, rip that from your _dead_ mentor’s book of clichéd lines?”

There’s a long moment where they just stare at each other. Hood, confident in his answer. The kid, seething behind the cowl. When the kid finally speaks, his tone is undercut by a sense of malice that, honestly, Hood never would have expected from him.

“He _isn’t_ dead,” the kid hisses. His lips curl up, bearing a stark white slash of teeth. “I found – actually, you know what? No. _Fuck you_ , Hood. Just unlock the damn box already or leave.”

“How ‘bout _you_ leave? Got no idea what the fuck you’re even _doin’_ here sittin’ on crates like ya own the place.”

The kid glares back silently. Not that Hood honestly expected an answer or anything.

Sensing the end of _that_ conversation, Hood shrugs and lets well enough alone. He flexes his fingers, the leather of his gloves tensing around them, and gets to work on the lock. With the key it’s a lot easier, but this thing still has a lot of teeth and it takes Hood more than a bit of jostling and wiggling of the key before teeth meet tumblers and –

With a turn of the key, the seams on the thing start glowing green. The light of it works its way up from the base, flowing into the rest of the lines like gravity-defying water until all of it meets at the center keyhole.

And then it _moves_. Pieces of the crate unseal from one another, hissing and separating to reveal a gaping darkness beneath. Eventually, once the pieces are far enough apart, light comes spilling in. It illuminates a mass of black foam with three even indents. Small vials of innocuous, clear liquid take up two of them. The one in the middle is missing.

“The fuck…?” Hood blinks down at the vials.

“Not what you were expecting?” the Replacement asks.

“No.” Hood tosses the key back at him, and, somewhat disappointingly, he catches it deftly with one hand. “Goin’ by the box, I thought it’d be ceremonial knives or a gallon of Lazarus water or some shit.”

“Do you _really_ think Ra’s would bring that stuff into _Gotham?_ He _knows_ who lives here.”

Hood shrugs. “Immortal doesn’t equal smart. He’s still the same bastard that knows everyone’s identities and _still_ doesn’t tell the world about it just because he likes the game more than the result.”

It’s a bit of a face journey to see the kid think about arguing with him on principle alone right before realizing that would mean he was defending Ra’s. He scowls so deeply that Hood’s certain the lines of it will get stuck in all that dark nomex covering his face.

“Whatever. I don’t know if _those_ ,” the kid points his _bo_ at the crate, letting the inertia of the movement _snap_ it out to its full length, “are what you’re looking for, but it’s time for you to leave. Ra’s is gonna be back sooner rather than later, and I don’t need you getting in the way of my plans.”

“ _Plans_ . What plans? He’s a nigh-unkillable, cult-leading, _nutjob_ of an assassin with _centuries_ more fighting experience than you. How the fuck are _you_ gonna fight all _that?_ ”

“Why are you assuming that I’m here to _fight_ him?”

“You’re… what?”

The kid opens his mouth to answer but snaps it shut before any actual words can escape. His eyes fly to somewhere past Hood’s shoulder. And, really, without the obviousness of the cue, Hood knows someone sneaking up on him when he hears them.

He swings around, knocking the first shuriken out of the air before it can hit home. Hood barely has time to register the sound it makes when it clatters against the concrete floor – more shuriken, thrown from multiple directions, and Hood gets _most_ of them, but two of those ninja _bastards_ get past his guard. One thrown blade buries itself in his shoulder, tearing through his body armor like wet paper. The second grazes his side, just barely nicking the leather of his jacket and _thunking_ into the crate stack that the Replacement’s perched himself on.

“I hate to say I told you so, but…”

“Help or shut it, Replacement. I don’t have time for your shit.”

“Well, if you even _want_ help, not calling me Replacement would be a good start. I also go by Tim. Or Red Robin – which is a stupid name, by the way. What were you thinking at the time? Burgers?”

“ _No!”_ Hood deflects a thrown _knife_ this time. His fingers itch to wrap around his guns. “And it’s your own fucking fault for not changing it!”

“Sure, sure. Blame the successor. Though I seem to recall it took _three_ Robins for someone to suggest wearing pants. I wonder who didn’t take initiative after inheriting Dick’s questionable sense of style?” The kid practically _purrs_ like the Demon himself was speaking through his mouth. Sends shivers up Hood’s spine is what it does.

“ _Fuck off_ ,” Hood growls over his shoulder, darting towards his semis and thumbing the safety off with a decisive flick. It echoes against the crates. Against the group of ninja fanned out in a tight semi-circle, surrounding Hood and forcing his back against Ra’s weird box thing.

“You want some ‘a this?” Hood yells at them. The ninja don’t even budge. Hell, maybe they’re just desensitized. It’s not exactly _im_ probable that some of them are the same guys who were stationed out in Nanda Parbat while Talia was keeping him around to play house.

One of the ninja steps forward, looking _very_ much like she wants some of this.

“Leave,” she says, all business and no play, “or you will be _made_ to leave.”

“Yeah? Well, I’d like to see your pajama-wearing ass _try_.”

The ninja’s eyes slide past him, out into the middle distance of the ring of crates surrounding the fancy-pants box. There’s a noise that sounds like _exactly_ what happens when you smack an empty crate with a metal pole out of boredom.  

Not that Hood would know anything about that.

“Don’t look at him, look at me.” Hood snaps, grimacing. “He ain’t a part of this, and if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t _try_ to be. Ain’t that right, Replacement?”

When he glances over, the kid’s looking at the ninja. The ninja’s looking back at the kid. No one is looking at Hood. Something about that makes him want to _bash_ some _heads_.

“Try your luck,” the kid says, shrugging. “It can’t be worse than fighting Pru when she gets her hands on tequila and anything bigger than a Glock.”

The ninja tilts her head, then nods like the words that just came out of the kid’s mouth make _sense_. Who the hell is Pru? And who the _fuck_ is a mutual acquaintance of reject Robin number three _and_ a ninja with more devotion than brains?

Hood does not, in fact, have time to consider the possibilities.

The ninja springs forward. Rushes him. Her blade is out, gleaming wickedly. Her dark eyes are steely. And she _slams_ into him full force before he can get so much as a gun between them. It isn’t a great way to start a fight, especially if it’s one that Hood’s looking to _win_.

And she’s got determination. Hood swings and she ducks. He kicks and she dodges. She darts around him, using his size against him. And she’s fucking _fast_. He thinks he hears the Replacement call out something vaguely encouraging at from the sideline. He doesn’t catch who it was aimed at, but he makes a mental note to kick his ass.

Two minutes and Hood’s sweating. Five, and his muscles are starting to feel fatigued.

He _really_ needs to lay off those cigarettes…

Seven and, in a split second break in the ninja’s defenses, Hood’s fist finds her _skull_ and she crumples in a heap. The hit knocks her mask just far enough askew to send a waterfall of box braids spilling out over the floor.

“Alright,” he says, eying the other ninja, “who’s nex–”

Heat washes across his body. His heart races just as fast as the world starts spinning. It tilts. Pitches. And Hood finds his face suddenly much closer to the floor. As in _on_ the floor. The coolness feels good against his face, against where it feels like someone lit a fire under his skin.

“What are you – _fuck!_ ” someone who sounds like the kid yells from above him. There’s a soft _thud_ of boots and the sound of quick, hurried footfalls before a shadow washes over him. He hears voices that are close and distant all at once. It’s soothing.

“Shit,” the voice mutters. “ _Shit._ You – _yes_ , _you_ – what was on that blade? You don’t know? Well, _find out_.”

Hands grip tight against Hood’s shoulder and side, hooking around him and rolling him over to his back.

“Wait a minute…” the voice says, leaning away from Hood for a moment to look –

“ _Who_ took Ra’s ‘science experiment’ out of its case? And who – quick. Check her blades. _Yes_ that includes the ones in him. Yes that – no, you know what? Never mind. You.”

There’s a snapping sound, a shift in the air like an arm moving just above Hood’s head.

“Get the medical kit from the office,” the kid demands, almost too quickly for Hood to understand. “Did this stuff come with an antidote? Oh, come _on_ . It’s _Ra’s_. He always like three million failsafes.”

Hood hears some distant rustling, confused murmuring.

“ _Fuck –_ “ the kid hisses, hands still fluttering around where Hood’s chest is _on_ fire. “Well, _bring it here, then_.”

Hood’s response comes across as mumbled, more strung-together syllables than actual words.

The kid glares somewhere off into the distance.

“Well, tell him it’s a stupid rule and give it to me anyway,” he mutters, darkly. “How close is he? Seriously? _Fine._ Look, you can tell him I stole it if it’ll make you feel better, but I need that antidote _right. Now.”_

He hears the distinct sound of something being thrown, but his vision is getting to spotty to tell _what_ it would be.

“ _Finally._ Thank you – “ the kid trails off and suddenly there’s something being poured over Hood’s chest and it _burns_ and he’s _screaming_ and –

Somewhere in the distance, there’s a loud bang.

Somewhere above him, the kid is still muttering to himself.

The last thing Hood knows is a quiet, strained voice whispering, “You’re going to be okay.”

 

____________________________________

 

Consciousness comes and goes, chased by waves of pain and the vague awareness that Jason is lying on something hard. He tries to open his eyes. He can’t. Somewhere to his left there are people near him arguing like they’re trying to be quiet but being really bad at it.

“Well, what did _you_ expect me to do?” one of the voices asks, “Let him _die?_ ”

There’s only silence, and Jason thinks he might have passed out again when the same voice huffs in annoyance. It says, “Oh, don’t give me that look. Even _you_ know you can’t afford for Batman to come poking around your operation right now. And if _he_ mysteriously disappears, or worse, his _body_ turns up, you know it won’t be long before Dick’s breaking down your door. And, if that happens, don’t think I’m even going to _consider_ running interference. You don’t have _that_ much on me.”

Jason hears a low, smug-sounding chuckle. The kind of chuckle chuckled by a _bastard._

“Very well, Timothy,” and Jason _knows_ that voice like a knife to the gut, “if you _insist_ that I not kill him, I shall do my utmost refrain from doing so, regardless of the temptation. Though I doubt I would even have to lift a finger. His injuries are severe; you would not _deign_ to leave him in our care once more, yet any attempt to move him on your own would likely end in severe injury. Perhaps even death.”

He hears quiet sound of metal on metal, interlocking steel sliding against itself. Timothy – _Tim_ , his brain reminds him – shifts his stance. Getting ready to fight, maybe.

“Just when I think you can’t be _more_ of a prick –,” Tim hisses,” _Fine_ . You want to play it like that?” If you’re going to be stubborn, I’m borrowing the ninja. _They_ can help me move him.”

“You are most certainly _not_ ,” Ra’s insists – and there is little doubt in Jason’s mind that that’s _exactly_ who’s decided to drop in on this train wreck. It’s just something about the _arrogance_ in the way he says, “Moreover, as I recall, the League’s chosen are _mine_ to command. You hold no sway here.”

Tim gives him a sharp, bitter laugh. “The Gotham ninja like me better.”

“Nonetheless,” Ra’s doesn’t even _try_ to dispute that, for some reason… but Ra’s is still talking. Jason forces his reeling brain to quiet and his ringing ears to listen, even if it’s one of the most painful things he’s done in recent memory.

“You are _not_ the Demon’s Head,” Ra’s says, like that was even in question, “thus, they will not follow you without my express permission.”

“Your _permission._ Hah! As if you haven’t been giving me free reign over your organization for your own amusement. But you know what? _Fine._ I know this game, so I’ve got a deal for you. If your ninja help me get him back to a safehouse, I’ll owe you a favor.”

“Oh?” Ra’s doesn’t bother hiding his interest. Something in his tone sets Jason’s skin crawling.

“Don’t play coy with me, Ra’s. Here are my terms: the ninja will help me get him to safety and get whatever I need to patch him up. Name yours. Right now, I’m telling you that I won’t kill anyone, but other than that you get to name the favor. Do we have a deal?”

Ra’s speaks with an insidious, creeping smile hidden beneath his words.

“Only _one_ such stipulation, Timothy?” Jason’s skin has gone past crawling and straight to running away full tilt. “ _My_ , the possibilities are… intriguing. Yet, as I recall, you forced my servant’s hand in giving you the antidote. There are not many of it’s like, and it will take significant time and resources to replace…“

“So, what?”

Ask a stupid question – Jason can _hear_ this one coming from a mile away. He blinks once, twice, and _sees._ Just in time to wish he couldn’t.

_“So,_ ” Ra’s _purrs._ “I accept your deal, but I believe you now owe me _two_ favors.”

And he’s standing _so_ much closer to Tim than Jason had thought from just listening. Close enough that Ra’s has a hand on Tim’s shoulder and another cupping the side of his face. Tim’s glare would probably kill him if he weren’t already functionally immortal. Ra’s thumb traces the line of Tim’s lower lip. He can’t be sure if he’s just seeing things, but it seems like Tim’s mouth parts, just a little.

Jason’s vision wavers, darkness flitting across the edges of it. He blinks until he doesn’t feel like he’s going to pass out again. And then everything _shifts_.

“The mission in Buranda,” Ra’s says, backing away all at once. Between one blink and the next, he’s far enough away that Jason could have mistaken their conversation for casual. Tim gives an audible sigh of relief.

“I _told_ you – “ Tim starts.

“ _The favor_ ,” Ra’s insists, “Is that you actually _complete_ the task you have been assigned. I am well aware you have been prevaricating over your so-called ‘moral objections.’ So, yes, I _will_ grant you use of the ninja so you may see your predecessor to safety, but in exchange, you _will_ assemble your team and you _will_ be en route to Nyasir tomorrow, before dawn. Do we have an agreement?”

Tim scrubs a hand across his face, the rough material of his gauntlets catching on pale skin. “Have I mentioned recently how much I _hate_ –“ his breath hisses between his teeth before he bites out, “Fucking _fine_. Buranda it is. What the hell else are you making me do?”

Ra’s takes another step back. Jason tries to crane his head to see him better, but he can only get so far before the stretch sends another rush of pain through his skull.

“You will be informed at my discretion,” Ra’s says, his voice fading into the shadows along with his form. He’s barely the suggestion of a shadow by the time he says, “but know that I will derive _far_ more enjoyment from it than I imagine you will…”

“ _Shit_ ,” Tim mutters, beneath his breath. The ninja who had been lurking on the periphery of the conversation draw in. At a nod from Tim, they move towards Jason. He tries to fight them off, but the – apparently – poison left him weakened, and he can’t do much more than bat their hands away in the hope that they’ll leave him alone.

It’s a futile hope.

By the time they have him lifted onto _something_ , Jason’s too close to unconsciousness to offer more than a token resistance.

Tim steps into his immediate field of view. The hand he places on his forehead is ungloved and cold.

“I’m sorry,” he says. But what for, Jason isn’t sure.

He doesn’t figure it out before unconsciousness claims him once more.

 

 ____________________________________

 

The next time Jason finally, _finally_ snaps fully awake, it’s dark out. He’s wearing nothing but sweatpants and some truly concerning layers of bandages tied tightly around his chest. He’s tied to the bedpost. In his own goddamn safehouse.

“What the hell…” Jason yanks on where his hands are bound. Someone’s tied them together with rope. He tugs around on them a bit, testing the knots. They’re secure, but not _that_ secure. Give him five, seven minutes and he’s a free man. And whoever put him here, well, they’re about to be a _dead_ one.

Unless –

Unless they find him while he’s still mostly tied up. Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds into Jason’s escape attempt, who else but the _goddamn Replacement_ walks into the room.

He puts a tray down on the bedside table, out of Jason’s reach, and pulls the chair out of the bedroom’s desk to straddle it. It’s a move he’s seen Dickiebird do a thousand times, and something ugly and _green_ flashes behind Jason’s eyes at the sight of it.

“Good,” the Replacement says, slumping against the back of the chair, “you’re awake.”

His costume’s on, but the mask is off. The rings around his eyes are darker than Jason remembers them being, but he’s pretty sure the one or two other times he’s seen him without the domino probably shouldn’t be a basis for comparison. You know, considering the attempted murder and all.

“The fuck am I doing here, Replacement?” Jason grinds out. The ropes are _so_ close…

Before Jason can get _close_ to untying them, a thin metal pole snaps out, whacking him lightly on the wrist; the kid’s _bo_ staff.

“Don’t.” He says it firmly, but not unkindly.

“And why the hell should I listen to you? Especially ‘seein as _you_ ’re the one what’s got me all tied up – and, unless this is goin’ somewhere _interestin’_ , I’m pretty sure that’s kidnapping.”

The Replacement blanches. “It’d be kidnapping even _if_ I was here to – ugh. Whatever. The ropes are just a precaution; I had no idea when or _how_ you’d wake up, and trying to fight me right now would just hurt you worse.”

The implication is pretty clear, even to Jason’s unconsciousness-addled brain. It’s… not an _un_ fair assumption that he might go green. But if the kid’s the one who did this in the first place, what was he _expecting_ to _–_

“Well,” Jason starts, talking _real_ slow to make sure the Replacement really _gets_ it, “seein’ as you’re the only one here an’ you haven’t untied me, I’m assumin’ _you’re_ the one what did this in the first place. Why the sudden remorse?”

The kid gives him a blank, unreadable look. Without the domino, Jason can see his eyes clearly. The night washes them out to a pale, colorless grey, but something about them seems to still shine brightly in the room’s dim light. Something in his expression shifts, clicks, and resettles into place. If Jason could see inside that kid’s head, he’s certain he wouldn’t even know what he was looking at.

“You think that I… what? Captured and stabbed you  while you were unconscious? _Wow_ . As far as baseless assumptions go, that’s a new low, even for _you_.”

He backs away from the table where he’d put the tray, far enough away that the light from the window on the other side of the room casts him in a silver, moonlit glow. His lean against the wall turns vaguely menacing, arms crossed and scowl firmly in place.

“You’re here because I _saved your life_ ,” he says, sneering. “I was following a lead down by the industrial district and I found you getting your ass handed to you by some ninja. One of them had _poison_ –“ The staff extends again, this time lightly prodding at the epicenter of the bandages on Jason’s chest. He sucks in a desperate, reactionary breath. The thing fucking _hurts_.

“Which is _why_ ,” the kid continues, “right about now, everything probably hurts like you went three rounds with Bane.”

The kid ain’t wrong. Jason groans. His head feels like Killer Croc tried to squeeze it like a grape.

“What the hell was I doin’ in the _industrial_ district?” he asks, not really expecting an answer. He can’t remember _why_ , but something seems _off_ about the kid’s explanation, but. He has no _reason_ to lie about what he was doing, other than that Jason’s tried to kill him a few times. But murder attempts are basically small talk in Gotham, so _that’s_ no excuse.

“I don’t know,” the kid shrugs, “but it ended with a warehouse burning down.”

“What doesn’t?” Jason asks. It earns him a small smirk. “But why the hell did you _tie me up?_ ”

“Just a precaution. I know you’ll get free eventually. I used your cheap rope, so that’s not in question here. But you getting free, getting to the gun you stashed under your mattress, _and_ shooting me before I’m out of this window? Yeah, not gonna happen. You’re in no shape to go chasing me across the Narrows either, so if I were you I’d just sit tight. But it’s your prerogative, I guess.”

“Listen here, you little shit - !”

And then it occurs to Jason

“How the fuck did you even know where my fucking safehouse is anyway? Were you spying on me?”

The kid just _laughs._ “Try not to take it personally,” he says. “I spy on _everyone_.”

“A bit hard _not_ to when you _handcuffed me to my own goddamn bed_. Why the hell are you doing this anyway? Ain’t like I’ve tried to kill you multiple times or anythin’...”

“Who hasn’t?” The kid shrugs like he doesn't even care. That’s… pretty dark, even for him.

“Dickiebird, for one. If he’s lifted that Gotham ban he laid out on your ass, why ain’t you crawlin’ back to him?”

The kid narrows his eyes. It’s almost a glare, but not quite.

“A few reasons. You’re familiar with the term ‘the devil you know’? Recently I’ve been finding new utility in it. I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, but I _can_ trust that you generally hate my guts and will act in my disinterest. It’s the consistency that’s the appealing part, really.”

Jason raises an eyebrow. Two eyebrows. “So you _know_ that I’ll fuck you over, and you prefer that to Goldie _maybe_ fucking you over? That’s pretty messed up, Re – “ the kid’s glare could melt glass, “… kid. Guess the trust issues in this fucked up little family really are contagious, huh?”

“You just figure that out?” The kid just sighs, walking to a nearby table to reclaim the gauntlets he’d probably taken off so that he could wrap Jason’s shoulder. “Look, I’m not about to go ‘crawling back’ to Dick. But maybe _you_ should.”

“The _fuck_ did you just say - ?”

Unimpressed is too weak a word for the kid’s glare.

“You heard me.” The cowl goes back up. He steps to the window, then up onto the sill, crouching in the wide, open frame. For a moment, Jason thinks he’s just going to make a break for it without saying anything else.

No such luck.

“Look,” he turns and says at the last minute, staring back at Jason over his shoulder. “I’m not going to try and convince you that Dick’s still on your side, because honestly? That’d be pretty hypocritical.You should at least _try_ to talk to him. If only so he can pull your ass out of the fire when I’m not here.”

“Not a chance.” Jason snarls the words out. It’s the clenched teeth that really make it convincing.

The kid exhales sharply, frustration in every inch of his posture. “You know what? _Fine_ . It’s _your_ second life. Spend it how you want. Just remember that it’s not _my_ fault if you bleed out all over your own apartment and, based on what I’ve seen of the rest of this neighborhood, no one would find you for _quite_ some time.”

He reaches for the window latch.

“Wait,” Jason says. “I gotta ask - are we playin’ nice now? Because if that’s the case, ain’t it a bit _rude_ to just leave me here to rot?”

The kid’s expression goes from cautiously casual to calculating in a second flat. Jason tenses.

“Jason,” he starts, slowly, “I know you’re already free.”

And well, at that point there ain’t much to do but _act._

Green flashes through his vision. Jason sweeps forward, letting the ropes and carefully undone knots fall away. He pushes himself across the bed, against the pain. He’s halfway across the room before the kid gets the window open. But, well. The little freak’s always been just that _little_ bit faster than the rest of them. He’s _out_ of it before Jason can get his hands on him – not to kill him, mind you. But _no one_ ties up the Red _fucking_ Hood and doesn’t _answer_ for that shit.

Jason _smashes_ into the windowsill, his momentum carrying him nearly _through_ it.

He swears beneath his breath, clutching at his shoulder and side.

“Don’t pull your stitches!” the kid yells out at him, once he’s safely on the rooftop opposite the alley Jason’s safehouse is pressed up against. Ain’t no way he’s scaling _that_ thing in this state, even to hand the Replacement his own _ass_.

“Don’t try telling yourself Dickiebird still loves you!” Jason shoots back.

“Don’t try telling yourself that he _doesn’t_ ,” the kid shoots back, wincing even as he says it.

See, they’re in the same outcast boat, now. Blasting a hole in the side of it will only drown them both.

But he shakes it off quickly. He mock-salutes Jason, holds it for a second until he’s sure that Jason’s _seething_ , and then runs the fuck off into the night. A good seventy percent of him wants to flip the kid off, even if he’s too far away to see it. But common sense wins out and his hands stay clasped against his bandaged wounds.

Whatever. He’s got more important things to worry about. And he can always catch the kid the next time the little asshole decides to drop in unexpectedly.

 

____________________________________

 

Except, he doesn’t.

The small screen blares its error message for the second time. One more failed attempt, and Jason’s going to be locked out for the next twelve hours.

_Crap._

He’s never cared much for these high-tech security systems; why bother with people Babs and her Birds skulking around? Or when you live in a city where complacency like _thinking your locks work_ is the third leading cause of death?

But when you’re trying to break into the place of the guy notorious for breaking into everyone else’s, well.

Jason’s been at this for two whole months.

More than that. It’s been sixty four _fucking days_ since the kid - or Red Robin, or Tim, or _whatever_ the hell Jason even calling him anymore - tied him up in his own apartment after apparently stopping him from bleeding out due to ninja-induced wounds.

Jason’s been waiting a long goddamn time to - to what? Pay him back with violence? _Thank_ the kid for saving his live? Fuck if he knows, but two months is a long time in this business. Longer still when no one knows what the hell you’re even up to anymore and you apparently have more ‘off the record’ boltholes than Jason would have even though _possible_ to hide in a single city ....

Not that Jason’s _worried_ or anything. The little asshole’s proved time and time again that he can take care of himself. And Jason is _firmly_ ambivalent to Tim’s existence. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet...

There isn’t even a whisper of a trace of where the kid went. No one - not Jason, not Alfred, not even _Barbara ‘queen of creepery and blackmail’ Gordon_ \- has so much as _seen_ the kid. He’s just _gone_.

Dickiebird and the demon brat probbly don’t even notice, what with Tim going ghost on them seven months prior. As far as Jason knows, he’s the only one who’s been in regular contact with him. And ‘contact’ is a pretty generous descriptor.

Yet it falls to Jason. And maybe, just _maybe_ it happens that once, twice a week, Hood finds himself stalking Red’s old haunts. The ones from back when it was _just_ Robin, no burger chains to speak of. Looking for a sign, maybe. A clue – _anything_ – that might tell him what the hell had happened to the kid.

And while Jason doesn’t _need_ to make sure that Red isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere, he doesn’t want to deal with the fallout. God forbid _Dick_ – _seven months later_ – finds out he’s missing and that Jason knew about it but didn’t _tell_ him. As if he has a right to _know._

Fuck that. Then he might actually have to _talk_ to the guy. And who knows _what_ he’d say. After all, from what Jason’s heard about the fallout between Dick and the former leader of his fanclub, he knows which side of that fight _he’s_ falling on.

Jason turns back to the screen. It blinks ominously, throwing pulses of green light down the dark hall. It isn’t just the safehouse that’s been abandoned - most of this block was derelict before the city finally declared it a lost cause. There are places like this all over Gotham. Neighborhoods wrecked back in the Cataclysm, holdovers from the veritable no man’s land that followed.

He’d still been dead then, of course. But hell if he hadn’t stalked his Replacement for a good _long_ while before deciding where to strike. The kid had probably found the building relatively intact when he’d been skulking around a half-destroyed Gotham with Goldie. Maybe made a note of it and set up shop in a place that even _Bats_ would think was too run-down for Tim’s usual taste. Fuck, was there even a cell signal here? This place would have made it _way_ too easy for someone who knew where it was to take the kid out – luckily for him, Jason had been more concerned with sending a _message_ back when he’d been spitting green.

Lucky too that tonight he’s feeling altruistic.

Gloved fingers tap away at the panel’s interface. If the last two months have proved anything, it’s that he’s going to get in here _eventually._ Week after week of systematically breaking into safe houses has taught him a lot, and if there’s a clue to what the kid’s gotten himself tangled up with in here, then Jason’s going to _find it_ . Admittedly, this safehouse was pretty low on his priority list. There are other places - more upscale, more accessible, more _secure_ \- that Tim _should_ have gone to, but he’s already checked and rechecked those. Jason had set to work on tonight’s lock with the full expectation that it would be another fruitless night.

It’s only after, that he’ll end up kicking himself for thinking the kid would be _predictable._

With a final beep, the screen flashes with recognition. At a nudge, the door swings inward on oiled hinges. Light comes pouring out, the sickly, yellow slant of it coming to pool at Jason’s feet. He nearly jumps back. His hand drifts to his glock and draws it. His other comes to join it.

Lights are on in a part of the city that hasn’t had power in years, but the apartment is quiet.

Jason bites back a curse. Rule number two of living in Gotham: when things start getting clichéd as all fuck, there’s no stopping the trouble heading your way.

Fucking _perfect._

Jason’s first step breaks the light, casting a sharp shadow that sinks into the hardwood flooring, dripping down into the deep gouges that look like they were carved into it with a sharp blade. Freshly carved, that is. The exposed wood hasn’t weathered, and thin, jagged splinters poke out from the gashes.

Something happened here, and it happened here recently.

Jason takes another step. And another. Even in combat boots, he moves quickly and quietly, muffling the sound of his soles against the wood.

It’s slow going. The place has electricity - _barely_ \- but the unsteady flicker of a single overhead bulb sends the darker corners twitching. The hallway doors were left ajar, light only just cutting into the inky blackness beyond. Anything could be in them, watching him from the dark. Tim, maybe, unless someone else has moved in on this place in his absence. Jason isn’t sure which would be worse.

But, more likely than not, they’re empty. Left open to make an intruder jumpy, maybe. Seems like the sort of thing Tim would do.

Jason tips each one fully open as he goes. None of them give off telltale, horror movie creaks, thankfully, but it does little to ease his nerves.

He finds nothing. A bathroom. A room of empty boxes. A half-mangled costume in red, yellow, and green.

It’s the last one that his mind sticks on, so much so that he jumps half out of his own skin when the safe house is plunged into sudden and near-complete darkness. A single sliver of pale light slants through the boarded windows on the other side of what would be the living room, if it had had any furniture. Jason stills, listening. He hears nothing, but that can mean a lot of things in this city.

Could mean the power’s out. Could mean someone cut the breaker.

And Jason knows where he’d put his money.

His pupils expand, trying to suck in as much light as possible. Green flickers through the darkness, but it isn’t pressing. Yet.

Jason centers himself. Stills himself. His heartbeat and breathing slow until he can’t hear them. He closes his eyes to better concentrate in the dark. And – _there_.

A shift in the air. The edge of a boot sliding across the beat-up floor. A single, slightly-labored gasp, only barely loud enough to hear.

His hand snaps out, catching the _bo_ staff mid-swing. It _thumps_ against the leather of his glove, followed by a pained grunt. With a frustrated hiss, his attacker rips the staff away, ducking and twirling beneath Jason’s punch to retreat to the other side of the room.

“What, change your mind?” his attacker’s voice rasps over the words, rough against his breath. It sounds painful. “Come back to – ” He coughs, though it seems like he’s trying to stifle it. The sound seems distressingly wet. “– to finish the job?”

Even without hearing him, the staff alone is a giveaway. Seriously. How many people around here even _use_ one?

“What the hell, Tim?” Jason demands.

The kid starts. He wasn’t expecting that. Which means that either he didn’t expect Jason to recognize him or… he didn’t recognize Jason.

“What are _you_ doing here,” he hisses. He’s still holding the staff in a defensive position. He’s expecting a fight.

Well, he isn’t getting one tonight.

“Calm the fuck down,” Jason says. He holds his open hands up, placatingly. “I ain’t here to kill, maim, or otherwise fight you.”

“Sorry if I find that hard to believe—” Tim coughs again, nearly doubling over.

“Besides,” Jason mutters, “looks like someone else got here first anyway.”

He isn’t sure if Tim coughs again or if he legitimately _laughs_ at that, but he relaxes his stance just a fraction. Jason takes it as permission to step closer.

He moves slowly, still. No need to startle Tim a second time, especially if he’s in such bad shape. Even if Jason _wanted_ to fight him right now, there’d be no sport in it. No fun. No point, if someone had already done the majority of the dirty work for him.

Tim lets him approach.

Well, ‘lets’ might be a strong word.

Tim basically falls the fuck over, collapsing to his knees. He only barely keeps his grip on the staff.

Jason rushes through the last few steps, dropping down to make sure the kid didn’t hurt himself worse in the fall.

“I’m fine – ” Tim says from behind clenched teeth.

“You don’t _sound_ fucking _fine_.”

“Well, I _am._ ” The force with which he says it nearly sends Tim reeling. He just barely catches himself. Jason extends a hand, but Tim knocks it away. “What’s it to you anyway?”

Jason nearly curses. Did Bruce and Dick let him get away with this shit?

“Call it repayin’ my debts. You patched me up after the ninja, remember? An’ I don’t like owin’ anybody.”

“Great. Consider your debt paid. Now get the _fuck out of my safehouse_.”

“Goin’ by your past behavior, wouldnt’a thought you cared so much ‘bout somethin’ like the sanctity of a guy’s safehouse...”

The room is still dark, but the hint of light shining in is enough to catch on Tim’s eyes. They flash with something dangerous and a bit desperate. Jason shifts back.

“Look. I told ya I ain’t here to fight and I meant it. Just let me patch ya up and I’ll be on my way.”

“No tha –”

“ _And_ ,” Jason interrupts, “I won’t even tell Dickiebird where I found ya. Bet he’s just _dyin’_ ta’ know where his charity case’s escaped to, _especially_ when he _ain’t in good enough condition to run off anymore._ ”

Tim stares up at him. If looks could kill …

The hand not holding his staff clenches against the floor, leather dragging across uneven wood.

“That’s playing dirty,” he spits, tearing his gaze off of Jason to glare daggers at the wall.

But it isn’t a no.

For once in his life, Jason decides not to press the advantage.

“Don’t move,” he says, getting up. Normally he wouldn’t turn his back on this sneaky bastard, but the chances of him getting out the window before Jason can catch him are slim to none. “Now, where the hell’s the light switch … don’t tell me you _literally_ cut the power ….”

“I’m not _that_ self destructive,” Tim murmurs, almost to himself.

“Coulda fooled me.” Jason feels across the walls. There isn’t a lamp to speak of, but it’s only a few minutes before his fingers make it past the peeling wallpaper and the exposed drywall to find the switch’s outer plating. He flips it, and the lights flicker back to life.

Across the room, Tim groans at the sudden brightness. When Jason turns back around, he’s got one hand pressed over his eyes and the other pressed to his thigh. His hand doesn’t even cover all of the injury.

“Jesus fucking christ.”

Tim narrows his eyes at Jason’s outburst but says nothing.

He’s bleeding, going by the color of the gauze, but not at an immediately concerning rate. He’d wrapped his leg with something resembling bandages, with more of them wadded up over the wound itself to try and stop the bleeding. It won’t hold, but it should last long enough for Jason to find something better.

“You have any more of those bandages? Medical supplies? Suturing kit?”

“Yeah. Bathroom. False bottom under the sink.”

Which, okay. Fair enough.

It takes some looking to find the release on the false panel. Tim’s safehouses may not have the same standards of cleanliness as Jason’s, but the kid’s always known how to hide what needs hiding. In this case, two solid square feet of medical supplies that look like Tim lifted them directly from the Batcave, and a weirdly ornate, rectangular box.

He takes a moment to strip his gloves off and wash his hands, taking extra time to make sure they’re actually clean. The crate has sterile gloves in it, sure, but if there’s one thing that Alfred taught him in his time as Robin, it’s that an aseptic environment is imperative.

That taken care of, he stacks box on the crate of supplies and props them on his hip, and returns to the barren living room. In the time since Jason left, Tim’s moved to lean against the wall. Jason can see his labored breathing from the hall. He’s getting worse.

“Hey,” he says, setting the crate down next to Tim. The box teeters unsteady on a corner of it, unbalanced by the protruding top of a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. “You hanging on?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Tim winces as he says it. Even he doesn’t look like he believes it, though.

Jason just sighs. He hates it when people make him be the adult in the room.

“Mhmm, sure. Here,” Jason snaps on a pair of nitrile gloves on and shoos Tim’s hand away from the wound. It looks… not great. “The fuck _happened_ to you?” he asks, thinking back to the gouges in the apartment entrance. They’d been made by somethings sharp; most likely the same thing that Tim had been stabbed with.

“I’ve had worse.” He doesn’t look like he’s kidding, either. Jason stops himself from looking up at his neck, at the thin, jagged slice of scar tissue that he knows is hiding beneath the armor’s gorget. He wonders if that’s what Tim’s implying.

Jason reaches for the kit’s trauma shears and starts to cut away the bandaging. Then, the uniform beneath it. He’s more than a little surprised when they actually manage to get through the kevlar paneling cleanly. The blades must be high grade, meant to be used by people who need to cut high tensile material on a regular basis.

“So you _did_ steal these from the Cave?”

“Is it really _stealing?_ ” Tim rebuts, wincing when Jason cuts a bit too close to the wound. “I mean, no one’s using it anyway. Not like Dick’s gonna miss it or anything.”

“Wait, what? Alfred uses this stuff all the time.”

Tim gives him a look like Jason is the third dumbest person on the planet. “You all give me shit for stalking, but come _on_ . Dick, the kid, _and_ Alfred haven’t worked out of the Cave in months. Everything down there’s mothballed and covered in sheets. Now they’re in Wayne Tower, up in that penthouse Bruce never used.”

Jason stops cutting and stares up at him blankly.

Tim opens his mouth. Closes it.

The moment passes, and Jason goes back to cutting. “Get anythin’ good?”

Tim gives him a half shrug. Just enough that it won’t disturb Jason’s work. “Backups, mainly. I’ve got a source that can get almost anything I need in terms of weapons and supplies, but it’s always good to have alternatives.”

“A ‘source’?”

“Nope.” Tim smirks. “I haven’t lost _that_ much blood.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Jason drawls, rolling his eyes. “Keep your secrets.”

Tim takes it to heart, apparently, since he doesn’t say anything else until, a few minutes later, Jason reaches for the antiseptic and suturing kit.

“I’ll do it,” Tim says. Jason blinks at him. He isn’t kidding.

“What? _No._ The _fuck you aren’t_.”

“You think I _can’t?”_

“No, I _know_ you can. But you _shouldn’t_ , dumbass. You don’t have to do _everything_ on your own.”

“ _Ha,”_ Tim laughs, short and sharp, but his expression is distinctly unamused.

Jason raises an eyebrow.

What follows is a half-hearted and severely one-sided scuffle for the suturing kit, seeing as one participant is the one in need of sutures. Jason, of course, emerges victorious, holding the kit up out of Tim’s reach.

“Ugh, _fine_ ,” Tim groans, scrunching his nose in distaste. “Whatever. You wanna sew my leg back up? That’s your problem.” He sprawls against the wall, almost going limp. “Just make them even enough that I won’t have to take them out later and redo your work.”

“Oh ye of little faith .…” Jason rifles through the crate for the pre-packaged first surgical sutures, grabs the iodine, and gets to work. It’s a process, and to be honest, Jason’s never been as good at this as Alfred. The critical, suspicious way Tim watches him doesn’t help. But back before he disappeared, the bastard _had_ stitched up Jason’s side while he was unconscious. Jason’s only repaying a favor.

They get there eventually. By the time the wound is cleaned, stitched, and bandaged, the sun has just started to lighten the sky and Tim is asleep. Going by the dark circles beneath his eyes, he probably needs it.

The safehouse isn’t the most comfortable in the world – one of the worst Jason’s seen in a while, to be honest – but it has a cot in the corner that looks like it’s been slept in at least once in the last week.

Back when Talia had first shown him the pictures of the kid who replaced him, one of the first things Jason had noticed was that he was tiny as all fuck. Even after puberty, that’s still pretty true. Getting him from where he fell asleep on the wall to the cot without jostling the wound is much easier than it would have been were their positions reversed, so Jason _kindly_ doesn’t leave him on the floor. Maybe he can write it off as a charitable contribution on his taxes.

The kid looks small, curled up on his cot. There probably aren’t enough blankets for someone who’s lost that much blood. Not for the first time, Jason wonders what the hell happened to him that was bad enough to make him keep quiet.

But there isn’t much more he can do.

Jason leaves Tim to his sleep in favor of ransacking the safehouse’s kitchen for what little food Tim keeps stocked. It isn’t much. There are some canned things past their expiration dates – probably put in here back before the demon brat showed up. Four boxes of cereal, all different brands, are shoved up in a high cabinet, tucked out of sight for someone of Tim’s stature. A single, unopened bag of chips sits on one of the lowest shelves, and Jason grabs it unrepentantly as payment for services rendered.

After that, it’s just a matter of waiting it out. He moves boxes around until he unburies a single, slightly worn chair, brushes the dust off of it, and settles in to watch the sunrise.

 

____________________________________

 

It’s nearly midday when Tim finally comes out of it.

He blinks, bleary-eyed against the morning light.

“ _Fuck_.”

Jason tries not to laugh.

“Fuck is right. You got yourself pretty beat up, kid.”

“Don’t do that,” Tim mumbles, draping an arm over his eyes.

Jason shifts back in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs.

“Do what?” he asks, affecting as nonchalant of a tone as possible.

“Don’t call me kid. I’m like, two years younger than you at _most_.”

“Do you prefer ‘Replacement’?”

Tim shifts the arm to glare out at Jason from under it. The effect is less ‘hardened vigilante displeased with your nicknaming habits’ and more ‘cat grumpy from being woken up’.

Jason just grins.

Tim scowls, moves his arm fully off his face and pushes up to sitting.

“Whatever.” He stretches, stands, and bends to work the tension out of his back in a way that distinctly reminds Jason of something he used to see Dick do.

It’s unnerving.

“So .…”

“ _What._ ” Tim says it like a statement, not a question. The blankets he’d been sleeping under lie discarded behind him, but he takes the time to straighten them on the cot before moving to the hall. He picks the door with the torn-up Robin gear peeking out of the doorway, kicking it inside as he goes.

“So, I gotta ask – ” Jason pitches his voice louder, so Tim can hear him from the other room. “What’s with the box?”

“ _Which_ box,” he hears Tim mutter, a bit frustratedly.

It isn’t until Tim emerges, civilian clothes layered over what’s probably light body armor, that Jason waves a hand at the wooden, ornate ordeal sitting discarded by the medical supplies. It was only once the sun rose that he could make out the darker sections of already dark wood, splash patterns indicative of old blood.

Tim grunts dismissively. “Let’s call it a contract.”

“As far as answers go, that one’s _real_ specific.”

He shrugs. “It’s all you’re getting. And – “ He pauses, lifting his wrist to the light. It looks like a watch, but knowing how Tim is with technology, Jason would bet that there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye.

“An’ _what?_ ”

“ _And_ I have a plane to catch. You can show yourself out?”

_That’s_ when Jason finally stands the fuck up. He crosses the room quickly, heavy boots thudding on the floor until he comes to stand before Tim.

“What the _fuck_ , Tim?” He throws his arms out wide with emphasis. “Just like that?”

“Just like _what?_ ” Tim looks incredulous

“Like finally showing your _face_ in this damn city for the first time in over two months, nearly _bleeding out_ , and then just up and _leaving?_ You can’t just _do_ that.”

“ _Watch me._ ” Tim sneers, turns on his heel and scoops up the box, leaving the medical supplies where they lie. “I’ve done it before, Jason, and I’ll do it again.”

And just like that, he walks for the door.

But, Jason. He crosses the space in two strides, and curls a hand around Tim’s shoulder.

The kid turns, twisting out the hold, shifting back away from Jason.

“Hey,” Jason starts, “I ain’t sayin’ that I’m gonna stop you. Or that I particularly care.” At that, Tim gives him a look that very clearly conveys how much he doesn’t believe him. “But _why_ . I hate Dickiebird as much as the next guy, but I can be in the same _city_ as him so long as we never see each other. What’s _your_ problem?”

“That _is_ the problem, Jay. You’re _going_ to see each other. It might be a week from now, it might be a month, but eventually it _will_ happen. And then what are you going to do? Make nice and pretend like he’s never done anything to hurt you? _Forgive_ him?” He scoffs. “In this city, _real_ forgiveness carries a price tag that _no one_ who puts on a mask each night can afford.”

“So what?” Jason challenges. Tim nearly flinches at his tone. “Stay anyway. Set up shop just to piss him off and kick him to the curb if he comes knocking. Easy as that.”

“No, it _isn’t_ . But that’s _not the point_.”

“Alright, asshole. Enlighten me, then.”

Tim shifts the box, pointedly looking away from the door.

Jason lunges –

Tim ducks, reaching –

But Jason slams himself against the door, back firmly against the wood. No one’s getting through here, _least_ of all Tim.

He slides down the door, legs bent, hands clasped at rest between them. Calm as can be.

Tim, left standing in the hall with a box and not much else, looks down at Jason with the blankest expression he’s ever seen on the kid’s face. Though there _is_ a vague undercurrent of disgust.

Jason only smiles. “Enlighten me, kiddo, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Tim sighs so heavily it’s basically a groan. But even he knows a good deal when he sees it.

“I’m not leaving because I want to. I’m leaving because I _have to._ I don’t care what you, or Dick, or _anyone_ thinks, Bruce is still out there. I have _proof._ And I’m _going_ do do what I have to do to bring him back.”

“And _what_ would that be.”

Jason doesn’t budge.

Tim’s eyebrow starts twitching.

“Nothing that concerns you.” The words sound like glass in his throat. Like each sharp syllable reduces his vocal cords to ribbons.

“I’m handling it,” Tim insists. “I _know_ what I’m doing.”

“Do you?” Jason lets the question hang between them, looming and salient.

Tim doesn’t budge. He just stares straight at him, lips pressed to bloodlessness, fingers clenching and unclenching against the ornate box.

“Yes,” he says, at length.

Jason narrows his eyes. The kid’s usually a better liar than that.

“Really? Because _this_ –” he jams a finger up towards Tim’s thigh, the one that’s bandaged beneath his jeans. The finger stops just before the fabric. Close enough to carry the threat of pain, far enough to stay _only_ a treat. “ – doesn’t _look_ like ‘handling it’.”

Tim scoffs, backing up a step. Away from the finger and away from Jason.

“Well, it is. So back the fuck off. It’s not your problem, and butting into other people’s business is more Dick’s style anyway.”

Jason withdraws, bringing his hand to his chest, affecting an expression of shock. “I take _offense_ at that.”

“And you should,” Tim agrees, though he frowns at Jason’s exaggeration. “But get used to it. Stay in this city long enough and you’re going to see him. You’re going to need help, and since I’m not going to be around to pull your ass out of the fire, you’re _going_ to have to take it.”

“And where the fuck are _you_ gonna be?”

“Nowhere I’m telling _you_ about.” Tim pauses, glances at his watch. His eyes shift to the box. They say there for a long moment. He sighs, and when he speaks again, his tone is quiet. Resigned, even.

“I’m going to be gone for a while, Jay. I don’t know when I’m coming back, and anyone I tell will only be in danger. Even knowing that I have _this …_ it won’t end well for you, me, or _anyone_ in Gotham. But I have to do this. I have to find Bruce. And I have to protect his city.”

“So stay and protect it,” Jason says, more quietly than anything else he’s said in recent memory.

“I – ”

Jason searches his face, looking for any sign of what might be going through his head.

He finds nothing concrete. But, staring up at him, he sees it the _second_ Tim’s face shifts from wavering hopefulness to cold, calculating resolve.

“I can’t,” Tim says, uncompromisingly. “My work is _important_ , even if it isn’t here.”

And, honestly? The kid’s got resolve. At the end of the day, it’s all Jason needs to hear.

“Well, kid. Consider me enlightened.” He leans forward from the door, pushing himself to his feet. Tim backs up a step, maybe expecting another almost-fight. But Jason just turns, sweeping the door open and sweeping into a shallow bow. “Go, do good.” He straightens with a smirk. “Or something like it.”

Tim stares at him in disbelief, then suspicion, before finally settling on a small, quiet smile.

He steps forward, past Jason, but pauses.

In that last moment before he leaves, before he disappears again for who knows _how_ long, Tim stops in the doorway. The light from the apartment’s mostly-boarded windows rests softly on the folds of his hoodie, a stark contrast against the shadows of the hall beyond.

Of course, Tim’s never known when to leave well enough alone.

He has an opportunity here to say something profound. To thank Jason, maybe. Or just to say goodbye. Instead, Tim give him that same little, dramatic half-turn from that first night at the warehouse.

“Give my regards to Dick,” he says, voice undercut with something mischievous and fierce. And with that he steps out into the hall, turning sharply out of Jason’s field of view.

“ _Seriously?_ You little –” Jason steps forward quickly, bracing a hand on the doorframe as he leans out into the dark.

But Tim is already gone. He wonders if this is what the Commissioner feels like when whoever is in the cowl gives him the slip.

Adrift. A little lost.

But the comment brings him back to their earlier argument. The one that left a cacophonous mess of anger, regret, and burning, lurid green swirling through the back of his brain.

Tim is wrong. He _has_ to be.

There is no way in hell that there will _ever_ be a situation where he goes to _Dick_ of all people for help. Where he lowers himself to _that_ level and forgets how much bad blood is between them.

But what if …?

No. Jason is certain.

It won’t happen.

It _won’t._

____________________________________

 

It does.

 

____________________________________

 

**Author's Note:**

> Potential TWs: 
> 
> Gaslighting - there is some brief gaslighting in which Tim takes advantage of some memory loss sustained by Jason and purposefully misrepresents events to hide his involvement with the League of Assassins. This happens as a consequence of an injury to Jason caused by the League.
> 
> ...  
> ...  
> ...
> 
> So, just some housekeeping notes:
> 
> 1\. This is a prequel to Deadfall, but can be read as a standalone.
> 
> 2\. In case anyone asks, Dick is very much aware that Tim is missing and is very worried. But Jason is an unreliable narrator and has a less than favorable opinion of him right now, so that filters through in the writing.
> 
> 3\. Buranda is a fake city in the fake country of Nyasir, both of which are creations of DC.
> 
> 4\. Since Deadfall’s Jason Todd is a lot closer to his N52 interpretation while Tim, Dick, and Damian maintain most of their pre-N52 characterizations, I wanted to write something that bridges the continuity changes.
> 
> So, this assumes that the events of Battle for the Cowl happened and that Jason’s more sociopathic tendencies were the result of a Lazarus episode for the duration of it. This story picks up after Battle for the Cowl, ignores everything that happened with the Red Hood & Scarlet storyline, and takes place during the year before Deadfall that Tim spends working for Ra’s al Ghul.
> 
> 6\. w/r/t Jason’s parents: since I’m basically cherry-picking canon at this point, the version that I’m running with is that Jason’s biological parents are Wills Todd and Sheila Woods, but he was raised (for lack of a better term) by Wills and Catherine. I’m using the N52 version of Wills who was alcoholic and abusive, so even though he still disappeared after shady dealings with Two-Face, Jason isn’t all that torn up about it. He _is_ still torn up about Catherine’s death, though he won’t admit it.
> 
> Finally, a huge thank you to everyone who stuck with me through this. I know it's been a strange, overly long process.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Robin, The Boy Hostage](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16354919) by [gwenfrankenstien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwenfrankenstien/pseuds/gwenfrankenstien)




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